my laptop's built in webcam does not function at all. it stopped working a while back when i still had vista. i have win7 now and have tried to open it with Cyberlink Youcam, skype, etc.

i've also downloaded drivers from hp with no success. could it be physically unhooked or dead, or is it a driver issue? any ideas?

I'd say its stuffed, is there any setting in the BIOS for it..?

nope, no bios settings.

think i'd have any luck taking it apart and checking connections? maybe something's loose or fried. the cam has a blue led next to it that used to light up when in use, but it never comes on either. makes me think it's not getting power. it's hooked up by internal usb from what i've read.

Look for it in Device Manager (probably under Still Image or USB devices but look through everything). If you can't find in in Dev Mgr, it's not being detected by Windows. Also note if you have any devices listed as Unknown or Other.

it's listed under imaging devices as HP Pavilion Webcam. you right click on it and get the same garbage about "this device is working properly" (when it's evidently not).

it says it's using system32\drivers\usbvideo.sys as it's driver. i clicked on update driver and it said i'm already using the best one.

Download the vista web cam software that HP uses and see if the web cam works? Or use Vista drivers for it?

win7 is known to have MANY driver issues. I could not install win7 on ANY of my older computers due to driver incompatibility (or lack therof) issues. Some vista drivers can be imported ( i have not had any luck with that), but if there are no win7 specific drivers - you're SOL.