In this time of remote working and video conferencing your webcam is an essential asset.
Everyone expects you to be able to do some video meeting on zoom, chat with family on camera or attend school virtually.
And for some reason your webcam is not work.
You get an error that, Built in camera is not connect
That’s bummer right.
Lets help you fix your webcam so that you able to do some remote work or attend school.
Lighting and obstructions
The obvious.
We will start with with the obvious.
Lets do a quick check first.
Make sure the room is well lit that you are able to get clear video. Is there something that is physically covering the camera or obstructing the camera.
When the camera is on there will be white light next to the eye indicating its working and can capture video.
Do those preliminary checks then we going to check your system settings next.
Windows Camera Settings
Next, you need to make sure the camera app has all the permissions enabled. To check the settings in windows 10,
- press the Start button and type camera.
- Then right click on the camera app and select settings
- toggle on settings for camera, video and audio as show in the image below
Now start the camera app and see if it will run.
Reset camera app in windows
Resetting the camera app setting will also fix your internal web camera if its not working.
In the same settings I described above if you scroll to the bottom you will see the reset button.
Click to reset.
You reach it the same way, by searching the camera app, right click on it then scroll to the bottom of the settings page.
Install or reinstall drivers
The above options mainly fixes windows glitches caused by software corruption or windows updates. If the camera is still not fixed follow along for more methods.
First check if the camera appears in device manager. You should see the specific name of your camera under camera menu.
It should probably read Integrated webcam
If the drivers are not installed it will not appear or show a yellow sign.
If that’s the case you need to download drivers and install them.
You can go to dell.com on drivers and support section enter your service tag number and chose your operating system.
Search for camera and download the drivers mine is the Realtek IR Camera driver. Depending on your laptop yours might be different.
Double click the file you downloaded to run the setup and follow the wizard.
Webcam errors 0xa00f4271, 0xa00f4244 dell 0xa00f4292
If you getting one of the above errors and Media Capture Failed Event error it can be a case of a software error again. Corrupted drivers settings and so on.
Make sure you have tried the methods I mentioned above as they also solve the camera codes.
Chipset Drivers
In the middle of data flow between the CPU and your camera is a chipset. If the chipset drivers are not installed you will get an error message as the camera cant communicate with the CPU.
Update all your chipset drivers.
Go to your dell laptop drivers download page.
Check that your laptop model is correctly identified and select the operating system you are using.
Download and install all the chipset drivers
Privacy Settings
another setting to check is the privacy setting. Check that the privacy settings allow the camera to work with other apps.
- Press the Windows Key + i key simultaneously to go to windows settings, alternatively search and select windows settings.
- Now open Privacy
- Then click on camera on the left of the settings page
- Toggle on, the allow apps to access camera button
- Click on change on, allow camera access for this device is off and change it to on.
- Reboot the computer
Dell diagnostics
You need to also check your hardware if its not faulty. Dell Diagnostics is a good tool to discover hardware faults.
If you dell camera is still not working, do a full system scan of hardware issues with dell diagnostics.
If your hardware is not functioning properly you will get an error code which you can look up
Integrated Webcam not connected
This will seem to be a strange one. How can a camera thats built in be not connected.
Or get the error. Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45)
A lot of dell inspiron laptop users face this one. The truth of the situation is that rarely is it that the camera is physically disconnected.
Its probably a matter of corrupt drivers and software.
Also on some laptop the BIOS or UEFI settings allow you to disable the camera. When camera is disabled at the BIOS or UEFI level you will get the error integrated webcam is not connected.
So what you need is to check the BIOS if the camera is disabled or not. If its disabled enable it and reboot the computer.
Also update the BIOS or UEFI firmware if there are more recent versions available.
External Camera
Finally if the above has failed you might invest in an external camera. Built in camera are not high quality.
Well that is when they are compare to external camera. With the advent of the current lockdowns and remote work its a good investment. Check these external webcams and pick one.