webcam & battery problems

AAO D250 with XP

Hi, I sort of raised one of these issue before (still not resolved) here but I the new one may be related :
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21425

Basically I've 2 problems.
1. Webcam stopped working and now I get "USB device not recognised" messages and "Video device not found" type message in Moviemaker. I think it started after I left the netbook for a long time and it went to sleep or shutdown.

2. Battery started playing up, not fully charging up or running down really quickly - at least that's what the PC was saying. Recently I cannot boot up the PC from battery alone. When I plug into the mains and bootup it gets stuck on a black screen just after the ACER black/white screen. I've discovered that if I remove/insert the battery at this point then it does bootup. it's as if the netbook has a problem with the battery/power durug bootup. I've tried a brand new battery and borrowed other batteries which I know work from other AAO250s and it always does this.

I think I read somewhere about the power management and the crystaleye webcam drivers getting 'confused'. The battery is my biggest problem tho' it would be nice to sort out the webcam too. I downloaded webcam drivers but cannot install them.

Any help out there please ?"!

 

I'd say the cam problem is a hardware issue. There's been several reports of the cam's just dying for no apparent reason. To test this you could boot a "live" linux distro and see if the cam is detected, installed and working under linux. If the cam still doesn't work, then you might need to replace the cam module inside the lid.

As for the battery it's probably at the end of its rope. Try turning the laptop off, remove the battery and ac lead, hold the power button for about a minute and release it. Plug the battery back in and while the machine's off, plug in the AC lead and see if the battery charges completely while the computer is off. If it doesn't charge, chances are you'll be up for a new battery.

 

Hi, thanks for replying. I've got a new battery and tried ones from other netbooks that I know are okay. So I reckon it's not the battery & it must be software related. I've just discovered that when i bootup from the battery it starts loading windows if I close the lid and re-open. It' must be something to do with boot up and "power".

 

Yeah it sounds like your battery's okay. The D250 required a BIOS update to fix battery charge level reporting and CPU speed reporting for Windows 7, so maybe it'll be worth your while to make sure that's up to date as well.

Failing that, there could be a bug in your Windows XP and you might need to either reinstall it, or run a factory restore.