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Many thanks to all of the Loungers who offered thoughts and advice – much appreciated.I finally gave up and took the laptop back to the shop where I bought it about 3 months previously. They tested it for about 1/2 hour and then sent it off to Acer for repair. A week later they called us to go back to the shop and collect a brand new Acer replacement. Thanks to Chi Chang computer store and Acer in Chiangmai, Thailand for the great service – it’s one reason why Acer is the top selling brand here.

Many thanks to all who have responded.
I discovered that the webcam would VERY occasionally work and then stop – all randomly and withough apparent rhyme nor reason.
I have now been through the trauma of backing up all data to an external drive, reformatting the complete HDD and then used the Windows rescue disks (which I made when the ‘puter was just a few days old) to perform a fresh install. Still no joy.
Last night I reformatted the HDD, used the Acer Rescue disks (again burnt when the ‘puter was a few days old) and reinstalled everything to just-born factory original condition (including the bloatware – no choice). 5 hours later it was up & running, but no webcam.
A reboot later and the Acer “Crystal Eye” webcam program found the webcam. Great, I thought! I left it running for 15 minutes or so, to be greeted by a message from Crystal Eye that there was no webcam present.
Enough’s enough; off to the Acer workshop it goes as soon as I return back home in a few weeks.
It’s a pity as the V5 is the 5th Acer laptop I’ve owned, all of them having been carted around the world in a backpack and it’s the first ever fault. Can’t win everytime.

Again, thanks for the responses.
Jwitalka, I had tried removing all USB deivers and then restarting Win 7. On restart, it reinstalled all USB devices. Still no Joy. I’ll install the chipset driver & see what happens.
Medico, I went to the Acer website and installed drivers for Suyin, Chicony & LiteOn webcams. All three successfully installed the Acer Crystal Eye webcam application, but each version then states “webcam not installed”, “no Acer video capture device fitted” or similar message.
Michael37713, sadly no USB video device is listed.
JJ

Thanks all for your replies.
Zig – Thanks, but sadly there’s no hidden devices
Medico – Thanks, I’ll try any other webcam drivers I can find for other Acer models; nothing to lose, eh?
Jwitalka – The Acer site only lists the Crystal Eye webcam app for the V5 models, and when loaded it eventually states “no webcam found”

The “no webcam found” message is making sense to me, ’cause there’s no video (?) device listed under USB controllers where it should normally be listed within Device Manager. The trick will be in somehow getting Win 7 to find the USB webcam.

JJ

Hi Joe,
Yes the webcab worked originally (out of the box), but not since I did a fresh windows install.:o:
No, there’s no yellow question marks in device manager. Everything there looks fine, except that there’s no references anywhere there regarding anything resembling a webcam.
Yep, everything in BIOS is enabled (not that there’s much there, though).

JJ

Maybe have a look at: “Duplicate Cleaner 2.1”? (Freeware by Digital Volcano) It includes searching sub-folders (or not) and can be configured to your needs. It certainly fits my needs.