Problem view two webcams simultaneously

Question

I am attempting to connect two webcams (Logitech C-920 & C-922) to my Dell XPS13 (i7 Win-10) laptop via USB to record music practice sessions via OBS Studio. This machine only has two USB-A ports (one USB-C); I need access to at least three USB-A ports (2 cameras + an audio interface). Therefore, I would like to connect the webcams to a 4-port USB hub. However, when doing so I am only able to view one camera at time; the other remains blank.

I disabled the laptop’s onboard camera thinking this may help but still only one camera at a time. If I plug one camera into the hub and one directly into a port on the laptop it works fine. If I plug both cameras directly into USB ports on the laptop it also works fine.

I purchased two 4-port externally powered USB hubs; a USB-A to USB-A and a USB-C to USB-A. Both of them only displayed one webcam at a time. I could not view both simultaneously.

In the past the 4-port hub worked fine with my old Win-7 i5 HP Pavilion laptop. I suspected a newer, faster, more powerful, etc. machine would have worked better not worse. I have read elsewhere where some have had as many as six webcams running simultaneously. I understand trying to connect numerous webcams could be a problem but I would think simply hooking up two to a newer computer would not be an issue.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Tesla1856 · Answer

Never tried it. So a XPS 13 9350 is a slightly older model without actual Thunderbolt ports?

However, you would think a self-powered USB-v3.0 (USB-A) Hub would be able to handle the power-draw of 2 web-cams, so it must be a software issue. Maybe a newer version of web-cam software can handle two cameras or be able to set ID-addresses so that they can be concurrently.

StevenKipping · Answer

I'm using the latest version of OBS Studio which I believe is used quite universally.  Oh well, I tired. Thanks for the suggestion,Steve K.

d5123101 · Answer

Try plugging the two webcams into the laptop's USB A ports (since there is two USB A ports) and for the remaining USB C port get a USB C to USB A adapter (not hub) for the audio interface.

StevenKipping · Answer

Yes, that would/does work.  BUT I don't want to do that.  I want to plug all my USB devices into the hub.  Apparently that will not be possible.  That's too bad, particularly since it worked fine with my old HP laptop.  Like I said, I would have expected it to work better with a newer more powerful machine, but again - that's probably expecting too much.  Oh well - my bad. . . .

Tesla1856 · Answer

@StevenKipping wrote:

Yes, that would/does work.

Oh, I didn't catch that from previous post.

It might have something to do with the way the internal USB-hubs are configured on the XPS.

I think it's best to connect them the working way you found.

StevenKipping · Answer

I got a hold of my sister’s HP Envy x360. I connected the USB hubs (USB-A & USB-C) to the HP – both of them worked fine. So apparently it may be an issue specific to my Dell XPS13 laptop.

Like I have noted, I am not the most tech-savvy guy around. But, since my machine is only an 11-inch laptop and the others were 15-inch units. Could this have something to do with the size of the laptop? I know that sounds weird but I assume my smaller machine has a smaller motherboard. I’ve read that there may be concerns where different USB ports are connected different USN controllers (or something like that). Does my small unit only have one controller and the larger units have two controllers?

Please bear with me as I am only grasping at straws here so please. Again, any suggestions are greatly appreciated,

Steve K.

d5123101 · Answer

Best practice is always to avoid USB hubs, as you can see they love to cause trouble. A direct connection is always the way to go.

StevenKipping · Answer

Yes, but like I said, I'm very short on space and need access to three USB-A connections.

d5123101 · Answer

Short on space how (maybe we are talking about different things)? You get three USB A connections from the two that are already on your laptop and using a USB C to USB A adapter for the remaining connection.

StevenKipping · Answer

I mean physical space. Where the laptop sits is very tight so I'd rather not have cables sticking out of the machine - I want the cords behind it (i.e., connected to a hub).

Now here's something I just found out. This appears to be an OS problem. It works fine in a very similar Dell XPS13 (same OS, hard drive, memory, video, etc.). I cloned that machine to an external USB hard drive. I then connected the drive to my laptop, set it to boot from the external drive - all work perfectly. So it's not hardware but presumably some Win10 settings.

Again, any suggestions would be appreciated.

d5123101 · Answer

Unless we get a lot more details your best course of action might just be to do a completely clean installation of Windows 10 on the problem machine. What was the machine you took the image from? Your problem machine is an XPS 13 9350, what is the image machine?

XPS

Problem view two webcams simultaneously

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