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I have this Acer laptop AOD250 that I bought for my mother in 2009, so that she could use it to do Skype in India and talk to us here in the US. Well, recently I was in India and to cut the long story short, it was out of warranty and the screen was not working, so I decided to get it fixed by one of the local vendors.

I am back in US now and computer works fine except that when I want to do Skype, it cannot detect a Webcam. I thought it might be a driver issue, so I downloaded a driver from Acer website and when I click on install icon, it tells me that there is no webcam attached to the laptop. Now, can this be the BIOS issue as being discussed somewhere else or was I ripped off when I took my computer to the local guy and he removed the camera? Is it possible to remove the built-in webcam? Thanks.

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FIDELIS
2011-09-06 12:53:00
Hello, do you see a camera on your laptop?  If you see the camera itself, the problem could also be that the person that fixed your laptop forgot to plug in the cables to the motherboard.  There are two ways to fix an lcd monitor on a laptop.  The first option is you take the whole lid of the laptop.  If that was the case with your laptop, then that means that the tech had to open you laptop and unplug the cables for the camera and also the wireless.  Most laptops have the wireless antennas inside the lcd.On the second option, it is just a matter of opening the lid and change the screen.  The only cable that gets unplug is the one going to your video card and sometimes depending on the model the inverter.As an answer to whether the camera can be taken out, yes it is possible and really easy. 
Aibek
2011-09-13 12:55:00
I also think that technician probably forgot to attach the camera back on.
Tina
2011-09-05 20:13:00
Gauri,when you had your laptop fix, was the screen replaced?What they usually do when they exchange screens, is they take the whole screen unit, i.e. the entire laptop lid. They don't bother just exchanging the TFT - too much work! Maybe the new screen didn't come with the in-built webcam.