HP Webcam ACER driver Trick did not work

Hello,

I had given both AIM and Yahoo messenger a try. Both locked up my PC and made the HP webcam device get removed from the device list.
I had to reboot to get the cam back in the list.
From reading the ACER trick thread I gave the Acer drivers a try. After doing this the cam showed my pretty face in Quickplay. But when I tried to record. After about 5 seconds the computer locked up and the cam went black.

I then re-installed the drivers that came with the PC.

The webcam came back up in QP but when I tried to record. After 5 seconds of recording it crashed again.

Now for the solution. You may want to try this before you try go though that ACER Driver Trick.

Just for the heck of it. I wanted to see if we could use the cams built in mic.
That did not work. Without thinking the cam's blue light was not on.

1 - We selected control panel/sound
2 - Select the RECORDING tab.
3 - This shows 2 options for me.
A - Microphone (This was the default) and is the front Mic Jack
B - Microphone Array (This is the Webcam Microphone or built in Mic
USE B not A

4 - We then Selected "B" and changed this to defualt.
5 - We then clicked on the configure button and another window popped up.
6 - From the list we then selected "Setup Microphone"
7 - From the list of 3 Microphone types we selected "OTHER" or array.
8 - Next we did the speakeing test (Note Cam Light does not come on) and finished up.
NOTE THE CAM LIGHT DOES NOT COME ON BUT THE MICROPHONE IS ACTIVE.
9 - We then brought up quickplay and the webcam option.
10 - Clicked on record and Yahhhhhhhhh. Recoded 5 minutes both sound and Video without a lock up.
11 - Next we tried AIM. Worked great.
12 - Yahoo, Skype all work.
13 - We shutdown and rebooted. It still works.

I have no idea why this worked. But maybe the WEB video device needs the Microphone device to be active at the same time for video capture to work.

The kids now can use AIM. Another pain is gone.

Note do not select AIM's full screen video option unless both people are on a GB switch. I can use AIM on our home lan in full screen mode without a problem but when we try and use it over the cable INTERNET. It grinds to a hault.

 

This was both difficult to read and incoherent.

 

Sorry for the problem with my notes.

As you may have guessed, English is not my 1st language. But I try.

Anyways, In short.
This is a Vista Ultimate 64 Bit system.

1 - If your webcam is locking up the computer, while using chat programs. Such as; AIM, Yahoo or Skype.
2 - Or, Your webcam driver is dissapearing from the Vista hardware device list after you recorded video though HP's program Quickplay Webcam option.

Then try these steps.

Solution
3 - We found that by simply navigating to the Vista Sounds/recording Devices tab window and doing the following.
4 - From inside this window. Select and set the Microphone array as the default device.
5 - Then click on the configure button, located in the bottom left corner of the window.
6 - The Control Panel\Speech Recognition Options window opens.
7 - Select the "Setup Microphone" option and run though the test.

That's it.

We are using the same webcam drivers that shipped with the PC.
We did not upgrade to the ACER drivers.
I am not telling anyone not to try the ACER driver upgrade trick.
All we had to do was make sure the internal microphone was selected and running before we used AIM or Qickplay's webcam recording feature.

After doing this. Our webcam is no longer locking up the computer.

Hope this is clear.

PS If you should have trouble navigating to the Windows I mentioned above.
PM me and I'll try and help you find them.