M50VM + Vista64 - Fingerprint Reader quit working

I've had my laptop for about 10 days. Until this morning the fingerprint reader has worked well. Now, I can't log on with my fingerprints. I tried re-registering my fingerprints but it tells me that every time I try is poor quality, or that I need to do it slower. It generally reports an error before I even have a chance to scan very much of my finger.

Can dry skin cause this (humidity is very low in Atlanta now), or is there some common issue that causes this? I doubt it's a hardware problem out of the blue since it was working great just last night.

I guess I'll try uninstall/reinstall of all the software and see if that helps, but in the meantime any advice/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

My advice is indeed to reinstall the fingerprint driver.

Also you could try cleaning the sensor? I am not sure what are the guidelines for cleaning a fingerprint sensor (e.g., what liquid to use, if any), so do some online research before you try any cleaning.

 

Hilarious....

I uninstalled and reinstalled the ASUS security software (and Authentec driver) twice to no avail.

I as really getting frustrated and decided to try something off the wall. I went and put some skin moisturizer on my hands and then with warm water washed off the excess and dried my hands with a towel. Now my fingerprints read quickly and easily as previously.

Duh... I hope this helps someone else.

 

Actually, this is quite common in other fields. I have a friend working at the airport customs and he told me it's often very difficult to scan fingerprints of people with very dry hands.

 

i too was thinking that vista 64bit was causing this.. because, since i redid mine with 32bit vista, my fingerprint login is so much easier. Long time i had to do at least 2 attempts to sign in.

Maybe when i made my credentials, my fingers were dry