Surface Pro 7 Front Camera Not Working

Anonymous
2019-10-29T19:25:09+00:00

I'm not sure when it started, since I hadn't used the front camera on the device at all, but today I noticed in the Device manager that the "Surface Camera Front" has an error:

This device cannot start. (Code 10) STATUS_DEVICE_POWER_FAILURE.

Sure enough, upon opening the camera app, it acts as though I only have the back camera installed.  I am predictably unable to bring up the front camera.

Is there possibly a driver issue, or is this a hardware flaw?

Thanks!

**Edit**: Problem persists through reboots, disable/reenable, troubleshooter, etc.  Notably, I realized the front camera worked for at least the first hour that I had the device, since it shows you the camera feed when setting up Windows Hello.

Surface | Surface Pro | Sound and camera

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-12-15T22:26:08+00:00

    So again on my Surface Pro 7, with the System update today (Dec 15,2020) now the front camera is not working again...I had this problem when I first purchased it in April 2020 and was finally "fixed" with the system update that occurred around 8/19/20. Of course I had extensively tried all the things mentioned in this blog, include uninstalling this update back to the update on 12/12/20. The camera still doesn't work and unfortunately I am unable to install that update to go back further when my camera was working... So, need a new "fix" in the system or what to try next?

    I zoom for work everyday and as a teacher, I present to my students...this is a HUGH problem...please fix the change in the system that took out the front camera ... again...

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-11-29T11:29:49+00:00

    Sad to say, the problem returned after just 7 days of having success with this solution. I repeated the solution fix but the problem persisted. Any further suggestions will be welcome. Thanks

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-11-22T16:26:45+00:00

    The same thing happened to me after a recent Windows update.  Here is the solution that finally fixed it for me:

    • Open "Device Manager"
    • Under “System devices”, there are 3 entries for “Intel Control Logic”.  Right-click the first (topmost) “Intel Control Logic” in the list, then select “Update driver”
    • Click “Browse my computer for driver software”
    • Click “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer”
    • Select the 12/16/2019 version of the driver (42.18362.3.196)
    • Click “Next”
    • Click “Close”
    • Click “Yes” to restart the computer

    Thank you for your information and support. I have returned the machine to the factory for overhaul, and the problem has been resolved.

    I am greatly excited and most appreciative - this worked for me!

    In actual fact, this is the only one of the scores of suggestions I got which worked for me.

    In my case though, I did not have the "12/16/2019 version of the driver (42.18362.3.196)".

    My Surface Pro 7 had two more recent versions (2020) of the driver; I selected the older one.

    It worked like magic and in seconds!

    I had spent hours troubleshooting from the previous night and was almost giving up. I'm grateful that I did not. Thanks so much.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-11-13T01:50:15+00:00

    I have the same problem and I also will not ever purchase a Microsoft computer again!

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-10-27T12:46:54+00:00

    It worked. But in the automatic upgrades, why do the drivers (camera, audio) not get repaired and updated automatically?

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