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I have an old 3com webcam that might be 6 or 7 years old. A few months ago when I built muy new pc I found that if the webcam is connected the computer crashes. I realised that there was an incompatibility between the webcam and the motherboard or at least I thought so. As the webcam is really old I didn't care, it worked fine for years and that's what I needed.

My question is if anybody knows why this happens and if there's any way to fix it. The computer freezes and reboots itself and then it doesn't boot at all if I connect the webcam with the pc on. If I connect it with the pc off then it just doesn't boot.

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Do you have the latest drivers for it? – random♦ Aug 22 '09 at 4:01
Yes I do but it reboots before I can install them. – Yofre Aug 22 '09 at 4:20
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I had the exact same thing happen with an old scanner (I'm assuming your camera is USB as well). The only thing that resolved it was to connect a USB 1.1 hub to my computer and attach the scanner to it. You could try that to see if it helps. – Michael Todd Aug 22 '09 at 5:01
OS? webcam model? – Troggy♦ Aug 22 '09 at 5:48
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Could be a USB controller issue, then. Just because there are specs doesn't mean that every manufacturer follows them completely or correctly.... – Michael Todd Aug 31 '09 at 20:59
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2 Answers

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In comments you said you have the drivers yet they aren't installed yet. Try booting into safe mode and remove old drivers, then install the new ones.

Alternatively, a USB hub may be of interest to you.

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If it doesn't boot at all it sounds like there may be a short in the webcam connector. Does it work on another PC?

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yes it does work on other PCs. Older PCs – Yofre Aug 22 '09 at 4:19
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