Please help me with my two A8Js problems!

I just got my Asus A8JS-4S034P last week and I'm having a couple of problems.

First of all, the webcam isn't working. I tried installing the drivers off of the CD, but it's still not recognizing it. From what I understand, it should be under 'my computer' as a webcam. It's not even available for use with AIM.

Second, my DVDRW is showing up as a DVD-RAM. What's weird is I had the same exact problem with my last Acer Travelmate 4400 that I never got resolved. What's the deal here? I know they don't use drivers either.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

(Asus A8JS-4S034P using WinXP and 2GB of RAM.)

 

This is a non-issue, its still physically a DVDRW drive but shows up as DVD-RAM. Try burning a DVD and see for yourself

 

Regarding your first issue, the webcam, here are a few things to try/look into.

Have you tried opening LifeFrame? Is LifeFrame installed?

If it's not coming up in My Computer, try right clicking on My Computer, going to Manage then Device Manager. Do you see it there or do you have any yellow question marks?

Instead of using the CD, try going to the Asus support site and download the latest driver from there.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll try burning a DVD as soon as I get home.

As for the webcam, I couldn't find the drivers for it on the website. Am I blind..?

 

its under the utilities section

 

You were right about the DVD burner. I feel silly. It's just that I had the same problem with my last laptop and no, it didn't burn when I tried anyway.


However, my webcam still isn't working. I reinstalled LifeFrame and it says that it can't find the camera. I tried installing the drivers from both the CD and the website. The progress bar reaches 100% but it never finishes and exits.

As for device manager, there is an 'Unknown device' under the USB section. Could that be it? I tried installing the drivers manually, but it said that they aren't the ones for that piece of hardware.

I'm getting frustrated. I'm not going to send this thing back over the webcam, but it really pisses me off that it's not working.

 

ya the unknown device is it

in device manager remove the device

then go to add new hardware and let it scan for it.

Your problem is probably that you installed something from the driver cd that was incorrect so you may want to roll back the driver possibly.

My webcam came running out of the box, it was just there in my computer.

 

Yeah I've done that but it only winds up finding another 'unknown device.'

Thanks for the continued responses, guys.

 

ok well you are going to learn about device drivers then.

You are going to go to the device and find the different drivers for it and find the right one.

youre going to manually search, look at the various ones.

edit is vista on your computer?

 

It doesn't find drivers when I have Windows search online or when I point it to the folders that have the Asus drivers I downloaded.

 

its a vimicro usb camera

Its drivers are in windows. when i installed vista it was automatically on as well.

So the problem is whatever you did with the drivers cd. you can google up vimicro usb camera and see if there is a home site with their drivers.

 

When you are at the "Update Driver" box, click on the 2nd option "Install from a list or a specific location (advanced)." Next -->

Choose the most bottom one, "Don't search...." Next -->

at this stage, press have disk, and point it to your asus folder. Next -->

See if this remedies the problem.

 

try in device manager roll back driver. You need to go back to the driver that was orignally on the computer so go back to the orginal one

Or use windows restore

Or just use the recovery cds reformat.

The key point is that theres nothing to install, nothing to update. It works right out of the box unless you change something

 

That's the thing - it didn't work out of the box.

There are no drivers to roll back because it's an unknown device and doesn't have drivers installed - thus it's unknown.

Thanks for the reply, but I said I tried pointing it right to both the CD and the folder that I downloaded.



EDIT: Is there perhaps a process or start up program that turns it on that I might have disabled?

 

Try these drivers...newest Vista drivers that work for XP

http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/A8Js/Camera_YH_Vista32_64_070124.zip

 

I downloaded them and setup didn't start up. Should I just give up and accept the fact that my webcam won't work?

 

No.

Its my opinion that this is not hardware failure.

Ive had the similar problem many times with usb devices. It comes up the same way, unknown device.

You disable the device and let windows scan for it. It is my opinion that what you did was install the wrong driver for this device when you couldnt find out where it was.

It is my opinion you should reformat or restore. It would be better if you became more familiar with how vista deals with this issue because it will come up with all of your usb devices eventually, and fixed it though.


If it is hardware failure i apologize. It normally would not fail with that message.

You may need to take advantage of windows tech support, asus tech support or your dealers tech support so someone is online with you making sure you do each step

 

No, I have a lot of experience with drivers and USB devices and I'm positive I installed the right one multiple times.

I honestly gave up on this webcam. Then, last night, I restarted my laptop and all of a sudden, it found new hardware -- the webcam. I was surprised, happy, and not about to question what happened to make it work.

Content, I shut down and went to sleep happy that my laptop isn't defective in any way.

I start it up this morning and there's no webcam again. It is most definitely a hardware issue. But, ugh.. I don't feel like shipping this thing back over just a webcam. I don't have another machine and I need it for school. So I guess I'll just have to deal with the fact that I have a defective webcam.

Thanks again for the attempts, everyone.