13 R3, Windows Hello problem

Question

This problem happened about one year ago, I remembered that I had my system reinstalled by the local Alienware engineer, at the first month everything was fine, the local administrator account's desktop flickering problem finally vanished. But one day I accidentally uninstalled the camera's driver, although I went to Dell website and downloaded the driver, the Windows Hello function no longer works since then. The infrared light never blinks no matter what I do, and when setting up Windows Hello the camera did turn on, but it behaved quite weird. The infrared camera would turn on but became highly rely on the light surrounding, just like a normal camera. It could barely display any images if it was too dark. Normally when recognizing face, there ought to be light reflected from my eyes to identify my face, but there was not any light at all. I contacted the engineer about this, he suspected that it might be a motherboard issue, so I gave up fixing this issue temporarily. Last month my motherboard failed, so when replacing motherboard I asked the engineer if he could help me solve this issue. He tried but failed as well, he tested my hardware and found that my camera could operate normally on other laptop with Windows Hello, the red light could blink normally on other laptop, but not mine. In the end, it seems that it is more likely a software issue, rather than a hardware issue. This issue almost drove me mad, could anyone help me handle this? PS: The actual image when setting up Windows Hello.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

The warranty on this 13 R3 expired September 12, 2018.

"he tested my hardware and found that my camera could operate normally on other laptop"
How could he take the 13 R3 integrated into the LCD bezel camera and test it on another laptop?

Go here to run this free online camera test. What is the result?

CrusaderJeff · Answer

Actually, a half year ago I had my webcam changed to see if that was a hardware problem, since he replaced it successfully, I think that's not a big deal for engineers. It do take a lot of steps though, I checked a guide on a website that showed how to replace the camera with a lot of details. Here's my camera report, it seems that it won't tell the IR emitter's problem.

Testing was completed successfully. The results are displayed in the “Webcam Information” table.

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(edited)

PDeNoT~.~ · Answer

Hi, I got the absolutely same problem with you now!!
My Alienware M15R7 is just brought for 3 months and its can use window hello face to signin
until last 3 days, the blinking red light is disappear and I can't signin with window hello face now!!
I call the Dell Technician and they remote me to checkup the software and its all normal. And I already try reinstall the window but the problem still not solved.

When I set for improve face recognition its need the surrounding light like you said, and when finish setting, its still can't loging in with face recognition (couldn't recognize you, need to sign in with PIN), now they will send engineer to change the laptop display(including camera) but.. its new laptop (just 3 months old), so I dont wanna break it out. I'm so sad, there no any solution???

I think the problem is at infrared camera, especially the blinking red light that doesn't appear as normally, How to solve it, pls help me..... T^T

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