Solved MSI Monitor built-in HD Camera stopped working/broke after PC crashed

[ex0LL]

I have an MSI Optix MPG341CQR Monitor with an integrated HD Camera that works through USB Upstream cable.

I was like usual having a videocall with my girlfriend through discord.

Sometimes for whatever reason, whenever I close a game application on my PC, my PC crashes.
Basically, after quitting a game and returning to desktop, it's like my PC is still on and keeps working, but both monitors go off like power went off or something even though that's not the case. I have literally no idea what causes this or how to prevent this, it just happens and it's out of my own control.

Once PC restarted, camera won't work no matter what.

Things I did:

• Restarted the PC multiple times;
• Disconnected and reconnected USB Upstream cable;
• Updated Monitor drivers from official MSI site;
• Windows Updates are up to date;
• GPU drivers are up to date;
• Ran Microsoft Camera diagnostics & troubleshooting;
• Tried the MSI command where pressing FN+F6 will cause your camera to toggle;
• Tried to uninstall and re-install HD Camera from device manager;
• Tried to search for online updates for the HD Camera in device manager;
• Tried to apply old/current driver update to HD Camera in device manager;

Also, I installed Dragon Center and tried to register my product but it fails to submit.

Same things happens on MSI official site, I input CORRECTLY my product S/N and it just won't work.
MSI support won't bat an eye or answer in any form I try to contact them with.

Can you please help me? Is the camera just broken? I'm out of ideas.

 

[Rustys]

So others can assist you

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

Include the make and model of the Power Supply Unit if this is a Desktop.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

 

[ex0LL]

So others can assist you

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

Include the make and model of the Power Supply Unit if this is a Desktop.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

Thank you for your answer.

Here's my Speccy snapshot:

https://speccy.piriform.com/results/i3rk5lsdELkXX14tPu4hisv

As for my PSU, here's the specs:

Corsair RM850i RMI Series 80 Gold Plus 850 Wattt​

 

[phillpower2]

Graphics
MSI MPG341CQRP:ñMa`?# ƒ (3440x1440@144Hz)
XB271HU A (2560x1440@59Hz)

Having different refresh rates is known to cause issues, plenty of threads about it here

Problem you have now is that you have made so many changes that dropping to the one monitor for testing purposes may not help without starting afresh by running DDU to get rid of the present GPU drivers and allow you to install any new ones.

Something else that is about to be a major problem;

Partition 0
Partition ID: Disk #2, Partition #0
Disk Letter: C:
File System: NTFS
Volume Serial Number: 9A2BEA0B
Size: 1862 GB
Used Space: 1508 GB (81%)
Free Space: 353 GB (19%

Windows should never be installed on a drive where you also store personal data, it should be on its own 250GB SSD or a 250GB partition on a larger capacity storage device. as to why is explained in my canned info below;

For Windows to be able to run efficiently and to be able to update you need to have between 20 and 25% of the partition or drive available as free storage space at all times, if you don`t you risk Windows becoming corrupt or not being able to update which puts you at risk of malware attack.

Data only storage devices should not be allowed to get any lower than 10% of free storage space of the full capacity of the drive/partition on the drive, this also to avoid data corruption.

Please note that storage devices can physically fail if the amount of free storage space is allowed to drop below the required 10 or 20/25% minimum.

No immediate panic but having to keep upwards of 100 to 150GB available as free storage space is not cost effective and an unnecessary task to have to keep a check on.

 

[ex0LL]

Having different refresh rates is known to cause issues, plenty of threads about it here

Problem you have now is that you have made so many changes that dropping to the one monitor for testing purposes may not help without starting afresh by running DDU to get rid of the present GPU drivers and allow you to install any new ones.

Something else that is about to be a major problem;



Windows should never be installed on a drive where you also store personal data, it should be on its own 250GB SSD or a 250GB partition on a larger capacity storage device. as to why is explained in my canned info below;



No immediate panic but having to keep upwards of 100 to 150GB available as free storage space is not cost effective and an unnecessary task to have to keep a check on.

Thank you so much for the insights.

For what concerns the disk problem, I have other disks I can relocate personal data and games into; just was told that having the OS installed in the fastest disk together with other stuff installed will make your PC faster cause it reaches installed content in a quicker way. Me being ignorant caused this issue, so I'll try to fix it as I can.

For the monitor refresh rate issues, I can confirm it's something that continuosly gave me problem and I have no idea how to fix the problem in a specific way, I also tried to google for several solutions but I never found anything that could truly solve it.

While I appreciate these very useful insights, do you have something instead in regards of the initial camera issue?

 

[phillpower2]

You are welcome but can I ask that you do not quote every reply as we have to read the full post to make sure nothing gets missed,, thanks.

While I appreciate these very useful insights, do you have something instead in regards of the initial camera issue?

The screens misbehaving could be what is upsetting the camera.

 

[ex0LL]

Sorry about the quoting.

I mean, despite the misbehaving and the stuttering issues I've experienced every now and then while playing, the camera was never a problem before the crash I had yesterday.

Is that normal?

UPDATE: I tried following a possible solution for the monitors mismatch: from the NVidia control panel I both had them scaling off my GPU rather than the Monitor itself. The camera is still not working properly though.

 

[phillpower2]

It could have been building up this who knows, not being one to speculate I will remain non committal.

While we troubleshoot this;

Disconnect the Acer screen from the GPU.

Check that the USB cable from the MSI screen is connected to the USB C port on the MB.

Test by using the PC as you normally would to see if the issue still happens, post back with an update when you are ready.

In addition to the above, I note that the system was not set up properly from the outset, see my canned explanation below;

Once Windows has been clean installed you must then install first the MBs chipset drivers then the storage/SATA drivers and third the graphics drivers, the drivers can either come from a disk provided by the motherboard manufacturer ** or downloaded from their site and saved to a flash drive etc, this is a must and Windows should not be allowed to check for updates before it has been done as more often than not Windows installs the wrong drivers or in the incorrect order and this can cause all sorts of problems.

The reason why this procedure is so important, the chipset is what enables the MB to be able to communicate with all the hardware + are the first drivers that Windows looks for on boot.

 

[ex0LL]

Hey again. I want to renew my thanks once more for following me on this.

I tried to turn off the PC, disconnect the Acer monitor's DP cable from the GPU, turn it back on and try to access the camera but it still not works.

I want to note that the "HD Camera" is there in the device manager, and in the properties tab it says that it's apparently working properly; also, on the outside, where the camera lens is located, there's a red led that flashes, indicating camera's feedback.

"HD Camera" correctly disappear when I unplug the USB C cable, and reappears when I plug it back in.

It's like the device is there and recognized by the system, but it doesn't work properly.

-----------------------------------------------

Concerning all those core installation related problems, what do you suggest me to do?
A fresh re-installing following the steps you provided me ( 1. mobo drivers 2. storage drivers 3. gpu drivers 4. windows drivers ) ?

 

[phillpower2]

I want to note that the "HD Camera" is there in the device manager, and in the properties tab it says that it's apparently working properly;

That means that Windows thinks that the correct drivers are installed.

Couple of questions for you;

There are no Windows 11 drivers for this screen, what are you using and from where are you getting them from.

Where are you saving and installing the drivers to,

Regarding your question, if me I would back up the contents of the 250GB SSD and after preparing things as is explained in my reply #8 I would clean install Windows and the system drivers to the 250GB SSD.

You are in the fortunate position of only needing to install the chipset and video card drivers the chipset drivers takes care of the rest.

Please note that before doing anything you should update the BIOS, it should have been done before installing Windows 11 because of the trusted platform module requirements, anything after third gen Ryzen CPUs also needs to have the said BIOS update, download and info from here

 

[ex0LL]

Everything you say is literally pure gold to me, thank you.

Despite loving my PC and spending 95% of my free time on it for almost 30 years, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to core installation hardware/software wise. You have no idea how insightful you're being with me. Thank you, truly.

Here's where yesterday I tried to download the MSI monitor drivers from:

Optix MPG341CQR

Optix MPG341CQR, big monitor, curved gaming monitor, 1800r, hdr400, night vision, the best gaming monitor

www.msi.com

It's the official MSI site, as you said unfortunately there still are no drivers for Win11 (which makes me question wether upgrading to Win11 was a good idea to begin with..) but in my ignorance I thought it would somehow work regardlessly.

I also downloaded Gaming Intelligence, the MSI utility for said monitor, although it doesn't seem to do much at all.

The way I tried to re-install the drivers yesterday after uninstalling the "HD Camera" from device manager was the following:

1. Search automatically for drivers;
2. Browse my Computer for drivers > Let me pick from a list of available drivers from my Computer:
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Browse my Computer for drivers > C:\Users\Me\Downloads\MPG341CQR-driver\Optix MPG341CQR INF .

As to where they are physically saved after these operations, I'm unaware of.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

So just to be clear, what you would do is:

1. Backup the contents from the 250GB SSD and relocate them in another disk;
2. Update the Motherboard's BIOS;
3. Format the M.2 Disk that I'll later use for games and personal stuff;
4. Fresh re-install Windows 11 on the 250GB SSD;
5. Once the OS is installed and I have control of the PC: install the Storage/SATA drivers (might need an help with doing this as I've never done it or I'm not sure how I did it if I did);
6. Install the GPU drivers;
7. Install Windows Updates.

Is that correct?
I might need some help to format my M.2 and fresh-reinstall the OS on another Disk as I'm not sure how to properly proceed.. such as backup my Windows product key etc.

While awaiting for your response, I once again thank you for the extremely precious support.
I'll be updating my MOBO's BIOS in the meantime.

 

[phillpower2]

Because there are no specific Windows 11 drivers for the camera the correct approach would have been to download and save to the C: drive the Windows 10 camera drivers.

o just to be clear, what you would do is:

1. Backup the contents from the 250GB SSD and relocate them in another disk;
2. Update the Motherboard's BIOS;
3. Format the M.2 Disk that I'll later use for games and personal stuff;
4. Fresh re-install Windows 11 on the 250GB SSD;
5. Once the OS is installed and I have control of the PC: install the Storage/SATA drivers (might need an help with doing this as I've never done it or I'm not sure how I did it if I did);
6. Install the GPU drivers;
7. Install Windows Updates.

Almost correct but do not format anything.

Save the chipset, GPU and Windows 10 MSI camera drivers to a small capacity USB flashdrive.

Take all but the 250GB SSD offline to avoid any mishaps.

Install Windows 11 and then the chipset, GPU MSI camera drivers to the 250GB SSD, this will now be your C: drive/boot device.

Restart and test to see how the camera behaves, please do not install anything else until further notice.


You are welcome btw

 

[ex0LL]

I have just updated my BIOS, and sadly I can't see any disks anymore on my PC except for (C Local Disk.

After downloading the MSI BIOS you linked me into an external hard disk that I formatted into exFAT, I restarted my PC and accessed the BIOS utility.
I followed the instructions from a YouTube video, went into Asus Flash 3 Utility and accessed the .CAP file I downloaded.

After some time waiting for the process to finish, it asked me to restart the PC.

I did, PC restarted but it kept loop-restarting and showing the the "Asus Republic of Gamers" logo.

So, after a couple of times, I pressed F2 to re-enter the BIOS Utility and this message appeared:

So, what I did was entering the Exit page and load the Optimized Default settings, then went into Advanced page and locate the SATA Configuration to set it up as RAID (same thing system is telling me to do at the end of the screen in the image I sent).

After setting everything to RAID Mode, I saved & exited the Utility and this time finally the PC rebooted correctly.

I sighed in relief, but when I went to check MyPC for the disk states, only disk I can see is Local Disk (C.

What happened? What do I do to fix this?

 

[phillpower2]

Luckily enough your drives are still there but you unfortunately acted before reading my reply #12 which among other things advises you take the other two drives offline so as to avoid any mishaps.

You do not have a RAID array and so do not need RAID drivers.

To correct that which has been done, please refer to my reply #12 and nothing else.

 

[ex0LL]

You do not have a RAID array and so do not need RAID drivers.

Then why switching from RAID to AHCI doesn't allow my PC to boot and instead just hide my drives?

Anyway, I wasn't ready to follow through with all the instructions and just proceed with installing Win11 on my 250GB SSD just yet, that's why I innocently thought I could just quickly update my MOBO Bios with no harm.

But I have no idea how to recover my drives now.

Even if I were to follow through reply #12 instructions right now, I have no idea how to take everything but the 250GB SSD offline (especially now that I can't see the 250GB SSD anymore).

What you're suggesting by the way is to install the "chipset" (by chipset you mean MOBO bios?) and the GPU drivers manually (usually I use NVidia GeForce Experience to automatically install/update my drivers) in the SSD? As for the "MSI Camera Drivers" you mean the MSI Monitor Drivers, correct?

Thanks for your patience and help.

 

[phillpower2]

Your MB uses UEFI BIOS not Legacy which is what the original storage devices like mechanical hard drives required, you will also require this setting to boot from a USB thumb drive when you come to installing Windows.

The picture that you uploaded shows that the boot sequence is wrong for some reason, see below;

The present boot drive that needs to be first is the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 2TB (SSD), your picture is telling us that you have a USB storage device plugged in which is stopping the BIOS from detecting the boot drive, disconnect the USB drive then restart the PC to see ift he PC boots from the Sabrent like it should, if not, see below;

Go into the set up option and change the boot sequence so that is set so that the present C: Sabrent boot drive is the first drive, save the new settings, exit the BIOS and if needs be restart the PC so that Windows can load.

 

[ex0LL]

Yeah, as you said it was probably the USB drive causing my PC to not be able to boot properly.
To bypass the USB Drive, I ignorantly enabled RAID Mode, which instead caused all my drives except for C to be hidden somehow.

I switched back again from RAID back to ACHI after unplugging the USB drive in the BIOS Utility and now I can see my other drives once more.

Thank you for sticking with me, you're a hero.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, back to us, for the solution you're suggesting. let's check together again if I got everything clear:

1. "Take all but the 250GB SSD offline to avoid any mishaps" (I'm not sure I know how to do this, how do I put online/offline my disks without damaging anything?)
2. I already updated MOBO'S Bios, so I should be good about it, right? Is that what you meant with "chipset"?
3. Backup the content from the 250GB SSD and relocate it somewhere else;
4. Install Win11 on 250GB SSD (can I do it while also having an active OS in the M.2?);
5. Install NVidia GeForce Experience and update GPU drivers on 250GB SSD;
6. Install Windows Updates on 250GB SSD (will do automatically since it's where the OS is now located?).

Thanks for bearing with me!

 

[phillpower2]

Now, back to us, for the solution you're suggesting. let's check together again if I got everything clear:

1. "Take all but the 250GB SSD offline to avoid any mishaps" (I'm not sure I know how to do this, how do I put online/offline my disks without damaging anything?)
2. I already updated MOBO'S Bios, so I should be good about it, right? Is that what you meant with "chipset"?
3. Backup the content from the 250GB SSD and relocate it somewhere else;
4. Install Win11 on 250GB SSD (can I do it while also having an active OS in the M.2?);
5. Install NVidia GeForce Experience and update GPU drivers on 250GB SSD;
6. Install Windows Updates on 250GB SSD (will do automatically since it's where the OS is now located?).

Thanks for bearing with me!

From my reply #12;

Save the chipset, GPU and Windows 10 MSI camera drivers to a small capacity USB flashdrive.

Take all but the 250GB SSD offline to avoid any mishaps.

Install Windows 11 and then the chipset, GPU MSI camera drivers to the 250GB SSD, this will now be your C: drive/boot device.

Restart and test to see how the camera behaves, please do not install anything else until further notice.


You are welcome btw

Calling it a day now and may not be around until PM UK time on Tuesday due to other commitments, stay safe meanwhile.

 

[ex0LL]

Despite your answer, I'm still confused on some steps. Sorry for being slow and everything, but it's not as easy and given for me.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking me up to this point, I'll update this thread if I find any solution.

 

[phillpower2]

No problem and don`t worry about the clean install for now.

Question, is the input source set to Type C in the monitors OSD settings.