Why Your Integrated Laptop Camera Won't Work

The keys you need!

 

The camera on my Lenovo T-410 kept going off. I use it with Skype and Movie Maker and Facebook so it's inconvenient when the thing isn't working. I couldn't figure out why it quit on me. At first, I figured that the camera was broken, but then it unexpectedly came back on. Then it went off again. 

I looked up the laptop and found the original drivers and reinstalled them. The camera came right back up. Next time I shut the laptop off, the camera didn't come back up when I booted up the laptop again. Here's how I fixed the problem.

I did a Google search on how to turn the laptop on and off. Bingo!  I discovered that there is a not very well described and not very intuitive way to turn the camera on and off. Apparently I've been accidentally turning it on and off.  On the Lenovo T-410 there is a function key in the lower left corner of the keyboard. To turn the camera off and on, hold down the function key (Fn) and simultaneously press the F6 key. It turns the camera on and off.

Solved my problem immediately.  So, if you have an onboard laptop camera I recommend two steps.

1. Look up how to turn your particular laptop integrated camera on and off. Try it and see if it works.
   
2. If that doesn't work, look up the integrated camera driver software for your particular camera and install the software.
3. Then, try step 1 again and see if it works.

If that doesn't work, you probably have a busted camera. Get yourself a USB camera and plug it in. It's too expensive to try and replace the onboard camera.

Hope this helps. I read through a lot of ways to fix a camera that doesn't work, but these steps were the only ones that worked. If your camera is on, The camera will work when you fire up the software that uses it.

© 2021 by Tom King