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Dell Vostro 3500 USB trouble, most likely due to the built-in webcam
System: Dell Vostro 3500, running Windows 7 64-bit, fully up-to-date with Windows Update.
I have been experiencing regular blue-screens for some time now, approximately once a week, always with a USB-related error message. This has been going on for a long time now, but it wasn't initially the case.
The only external USB devices I regularly use are a keyboard and a mouse, but the blue screen usually occurs when they are not plugged in. I also occasionally get reports from Windows that there is an unknown USB device attached to the USB bus, but it doesn't provide any information on what device that might be. This happens both when mouse/keyboard are attached and when not attached. Hence I had no clue what device might be malfunctioning.
Recently, I got this message while using Skype and at the same moment the video disappeared, so I've come to suspect that the webcam built into the screen is attached to the USB bus and is intermittently malfunctioning (it usually works fine).
I've run Dell Diagnostics and it didn't find any problems. I've also looked through the list of drivers on the Dell website, but nothing seems directly related with the webcam.
Any ideas what could be wrong? Is this most likely a hardware or a software problem? Is there any driver update that might help? Is it likely that a BIOS upgrade might help (I'm reluctant to do this if not necessary)? And is anyone else experiencing this?
Thanks in advance for any help.
DELL-Roshan L
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April 3rd, 2013 05:00
Hi Erikvdk,
Welcome to the Community,
Since the hardware diagnostics passed without any error it could be an issue with a driver or application.
Try running this crash analysis tool WhoCrashed 4.01 and it may help to find out the faulty driver/application.
Use this link for download: www.resplendence.com/downloads
Note:Above tool is a 3rd party tool and not a Dell validated tool.
Please post the conclusion part after running the tool.
Thank You
Erikvdk
8 Posts
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April 3rd, 2013 08:00
Thanks for your response. I ran the program and each dump has the same text:
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\110912-291300-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: usbhub.sys (usbhub+0x12A60)
Bugcheck code: 0xFE (0x8, 0x6, 0x5, 0xFFFFFA80078F4DE0)
Error: BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\usbhub.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Default Hub Driver for USB
Bug check description: This indicates that an error has occurred in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) driver.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.
It only found a few old dumps (I guess the issue started in September 2012 and these were the first five occurrances of the problem), not the more recent ones, but it looks like the same problem. Maybe the system has a limit on the number of dumps it stores?
So indeed (as expected) it has something to do with USB. However, I think these dump files are only written on BSODs and there is also the other problem where the system sometimes suddenly no longer recognizes a USB device. That seems to affect the webcam only, not other USB devices.
DELL-Roshan L
4.4K Posts
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April 3rd, 2013 22:00
Hi Erikvdk,
Try uninstalling all USB root hub listed under Universal Serial Bus controllers in Device Manager.To uninstall expand Universal Serial Bus controllers and right click each of the USB root hub listed,click uninstall.
Reboot the system and it should automatically reinstall the driver.
Note:Disconnect all USB devices before uninstalling USB root hub.
Erikvdk
8 Posts
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April 5th, 2013 03:00
Hi,
Thanks for the advice.
I did this when you posted it, but unfortunately this morning I got a USB error message (not a blue screen) again, so I fear the problem has not been resolved. It says (I'm translating from Dutch here so this may not be literal) "the device driver for the device is not installed". It then lists "unknown device" and behind it there is a red cross and a message "device disconnected". I did not connect or disconnect any devices before this happened. Now that the message is here, like before my webcam does not work.
With kind regards,
Erik
DELL-Roshan L
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April 6th, 2013 02:00
Hi Erik,
It does look like this is related to your system Webcam.
Please private message me your system Service Tag number.To private message click on my user name and click start conversation.
I will check your system details and get back to you.
Erikvdk
8 Posts
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April 13th, 2013 00:00
In personal messages, it was recommended that I re-install Dell's webcam software, which I did a few days ago. Unfortunately, since then I have seen both issues again, the unknown USB device and the blue screen. I guess this is a hardware problem with the webcam then. Is it thinkable that I could fix this myself by reconnecting some internalwire or is this really a problem with the webcam itself?
However, since I did this another problem also surfaced. About 15 minutes after I resume my system from hibernation, my system slows down to a crawl and is permanently accessing the hard disk. It turns out that this is because vcsFPService is allocating all available memory. It is hard to imagine it is related, but the only things I did before this started happening was the webcam re-install and the Windows updates from last Patch Tuesday. I never experienced it before. I already found out that this is due to a memory leak in the fingerprint reader driver. I cannot find any updates for that on support.dell.com. Is there some way to fix this other than disabling the fingerprint scanner?
Thanks in advance.
DELL-Roshan L
4.4K Posts
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April 16th, 2013 03:00
If reinstalling Webcam software did not fix the issue then it may be a hardware issue.You can try reconnecting the Webcam cable(connections) but if that does not help,next thing would be to replace the Webcam.
For steps to access Webcam refer to Service Manual from this link: lt.dell.com/.../lt.aspx
Regarding the finger print reader Validity VFM301-4A Fingerprint Sensor, v.3.1.379, A02 is the last update available on support website: lt.dell.com/.../lt.aspx
Previous version available was 3.1.366, A00.