Webcam Issue

ProSouth

ProSouth

New Member
I have several webcams running through my desktop. All of them are functional but one specific one seems fo get intermittent green artifacting (I guess is the best word to describe it). The screen pixelates briefly across the lower third usually accompanied by or preceeded by a slight green flash, only in the bottom area. I've tried swapping ports and tested the device on an additional machine and it seems to be working fine. It is not directly an OBS issue as it's happening independently outside of OBS as well with other programs.

Any ideas on troubleshooting this or possibly more information needed? The webcams are all the same make and model so I doubt it's a driver issue or I imagine I would be having the same issue or similar across all three.
 
One possibility, though don't put too much into this, is a USB Root Hub overload...
You could be having bandwidth / timing contention, and that one camera is more susceptible to tripping up vs the other cameras?

Testing the camera alone on another device is a good first step, but does NOT replicate your setup.
Do not ignore possible interaction with having 3 webcam, driver, and motherboard USB Root Hub shipset and associated firmware, not to mention OS and other USB devices connected to same PC... a specific interaction between some or all of that....

Have you tried having that problematic camera plugged in first (and only) when PC booted up, and in a different USB port, and after OS up, plug in other cameras, then test?
if different start up order/plug in still results in exact same physical webcam having an issue, then you know it is specific to that hardware. Have you checked device firmware? Issue could be more of a compatibility one (ie, spec's allow a bit of variability, and that one camera having a different enough 'output'/sensitivity to cause the issue you described.
 
So resolution to this. I ran two more usb ports off my motherboard using the header and connected one of the cameras there. They all cleaned up and work perfectly now.
 
So I need to identify how many root hubs I have and make sure each camera is on a different one correct?
 
So I'm still having some instability issues. All my devices work separately but I cannot get them all functional at the same time.
 
Have you tried all 3 cameras on another, more powerful computer? Your computer may simply not be able to handle that much USB traffic
Or, you may be simply overloading the CPU
 
It's not just a camera issue. I can get the three cameras active, then I lose other devices. Could it be a power supply issue? My cpu usage doesn't spike with the addition of devices so I'm not sure how to measure that.
 
1. not a spike issue, but overall utilization and is CPU responding quickly enough to USB Root Hub and related devices

Are you being careful between USB 2 and 3.x devices, and associated ports?

ProSouth said:
Could it be a power supply issue?
Click to expand...
anything is possible, but that seems unlikely
it is MUCH more likely that you are overloading the USB Root hub.

On a desktop you could add a PCIe add-in card with USB (its own USB Root Hub)
On a laptop, you could try a quality (not cheapest available) Thunderbolt (or similar, depending on laptop specs) Dock

and try connecting a camera or 2 to that new hub/port
 
Everything I'm using with the exception of my mouse, keyboard and printer are usb 2. I have the older devices in appropriate ports. Everything else is in a 2 or 3 port. I have a five port usb 2 card installe, that has an additional sata power. It works but seems that sometimes if all ports are in use, I get some stability issues. I typically try to leave two of the ports on the card open
 
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