Some HP notebooks come with built-in webcams, while some don’t. If your HP laptop camera is not working properly, follow the tips in this guide to troubleshoot and repair your webcam.

  1. Check for hardware issues
  2. Allow apps to access your camera
  3. Update your camera driver
  4. Reinstall your camera driver

Before we start troubleshooting, please confirm that your HP laptop has a webcam and the webcam software is installed. (Please note that the camera app is prebuilt in your Windows 11 system. You can also download and install it free from the Microsoft Store.) After that, restart your laptop to flush the buffer. Then, proceed with the steps below.

1. Check for hardware issues

If your HP laptop has a built-in webcam, you can search for and open Camera in the Windows Search box. Once it’s open, check if your camera is working.

If you’re using a peripheral camera device with a USB cable, you need to check that the device is powered on, the USB cable is firmly plugged in, and the USB port is normal.

2. Allow apps to access your camera

The camera privacy settings might be changed after a Windows update, which causes your HP webcam to stop working. In this case, you can tweak the privacy settings and allow apps to access your camera.

Here’s what you can do:

  1. In the Windows search box, search for Camera and select Camera privacy settings from the results.
  2. Check that Allow apps to access your camera is turned on.
  3. Under Choose which apps can access your camera, turn on all the apps that require access to the camera.

Test your camera and see if it works. If not, move on to the next fix.

3. Update your camera driver

When your HP laptop camera is not working, one of the first things you should do is to update your camera driver, since an up-to-date camera driver always ensures the best camera performance and fewer bugs.

To update your camera driver, here’s what you can do (please note that the following screenshots are taken on Windows 11, but the instructions work on Windows 10 as well):

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows key and X at the same time, select Device Manager.
  2. Double-click to expand the category Cameras (or Imaging devices). Then right-click your HP webcam device and click Update driver (the name of the device can be different on your computer).
  3. Then click Search automatically for updated driver software.
  4. Wait for Windows to find the latest driver available for you.
  5. When the driver update is done, restart your computer for the change to take effect.
  6. Then check and see if the problem is fixed.

If Windows says that it’s already found the latest driver for you, so no newer drivers are found, then you should consider updating your HP camera device driver in a different way with the help of Driver Techie.

Its ever-growing driver database allows you to always have access to the latest device drivers that you need. More importantly, Driver Techie simplifies the driver update process, so all it takes is just 3 clicks (for Pro users), and all your drivers are updated.

To use Driver Techie to find you the latest drivers:

  1. Download and install Driver Techie, then launch it.
  2. Click Scan Now.
  3. After the scan, select all the drivers you need to update and click Update All. Then all your drivers will be updated automatically without you having to do anything else.

Please note that Update All is available for Pro subscribers only, otherwise, you can only manually update the driver one at a time. To see how to manually update the drivers one by one, please check this post.

If you’re a Pro user of Driver Techie, and need our technical support to help with the HP laptop camera not working problem, please feel free to contact <support@drivertechie.com>.

4. Reinstall your camera driver

Another possibility to consider is that your camera driver might be corrupted or not working well with your system. In this case, we recommend you reinstall your camera driver. To do so, kindly uninstall your camera driver first as follows:

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and X together, and then select Device Manager.
  2. Double-click to expand the category of Cameras (or Imaging devices), right-click your HP camera driver, and select Uninstall device.
  3. Click Yes to confirm the uninstallation.
  4. Restart your computer.
  5. Again, open Device Manager, click Action from the top menu, and select Scan for hardware changes. Windows will automatically reinstall the missing camera driver for you. (Either way, you can use Driver Techie to reinstall the HP camera driver as in Tip #3.)

Now, your camera should be able to work. Also, reinstalling your camera driver in this way can fix the program conflicts which prevent you from using your camera in a certain app. If you have any other ideas to share, please feel free to leave a comment down below.