Installing Web cam in Asus Eee

My Eee didn’t come with a webcam. I didn’t really think about it and, anyway I just wanted one, and as they are in short supply, I just got what I could get.

Then I found a Eee webcam in ebay. Somebody fried the motherboard of their Eee and was selling of the parts. I end up paying 35au$ including freight. Not cheap, but most of it went to the postal service.

This a picture description of how I installed it – Mostly done as an excuse to do a few macro shots. The shots was prepared for web using gimp on the Eee…

First of all I followed this guide to taking the Eee apart. Removing all 21 screws was quite easy. Oh, and all the screws where the same, so keeping track of which was removed from where was totally a waste of time.


The needed tools. Actually you do only need the 5mm drill and the star/philips screwdriver. You just need something to force the keyboard out, and pre-drilling with a small drill just makes it easier. Yeah, I know you can’t see the tip if the philips screwdriver – but if you don’t know what it looks like you shouldn’t be reading this…


The camera connector – just plug in the wire.


There are holders for the wire already…

This where the camera should look out… needs a hole.

Luckily the back of the screen frame has a clear marking of where the camera should look out. Dril from the back with the small drill…


After pre-drilling with the small drill, use the big one. I both cases I just turned the drill using my hand, as the plastic is quite soft.

There you go…

And it stil works. Well it could turn on…

But I hadn’t connected the touchpad well enough so that didn’t work. Popping out the keyboard and reconnecting it was easy.

Turn it on the the BIOS…

And run ucview on the commandlne to see that it works. Yeah,  badly need a haircut… and no the camera normally doesn’t overexpose like that, I’ve some hard  lighting conditions in my office.

I had quite a lot of fun, installing this. Finally I had an excuse to take my new toy apart. It was quite easy and I  didn’t really have any problem. Very well build piece of hardware.

I’ve also had a chance to use the camera for 40 minutes in the new skype 2.0 beta. No problems.

2 thoughts on “Installing Web cam in Asus Eee

  1. scott

    What EEE model do you have? I have the EEE 900A which looks exactly like your pictures, but the little Asus webcam I bought has a much bigger connector (!!) where do I get a web cam with a tiny connector like the one in your picture?

    Reply

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