Fixing Webcam Freezes on HP ProBook Models (430 G1,G2, G3+) Windows 10
Summary
We’ve been having some issues with the HP Webcams at my workplace and have finally found a fix for a few of our users. This was happening in Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Join.me and literally the camera app in Windows 10 so we knew this wasn’t a Teams specific problem. The webcams were turning on and showing an image for up to 5 seconds then just freezing until the webcam was restarted.
These fixes have been found to fix the webcam freezing issue on
HP ProBook 430 G1
HP ProBook 430 G2
HP ProBook 430 G3
It’s always a good idea to update your BIOS just to keep the laptop up to date. You can get these from : Official HP® Drivers and Software Download | HP® Customer Support or by installing the HP Support Assistant | HP® United Kingdom
I’d recommend doing any driver updates and downloads that the support assistant wants to download, but this will probably not fix the original problem. It’s just a way to help the computer in general.
Fix
I’ve personally updated the camera to the latest drivers via the hp official website (if you followed the steps above it should’ve done this) if not follow the link Official HP® Drivers and Software Download | HP® Customer Support and search your model and find the webcam driver.
The HP Universal Camera Driver as shown for the HP Probook 430 G3
Once you have confirmed you are at the latest version of the webcam software we’ll have to add a registry entry to the registry editor.
BE CAREFUL HERE AND ONLY FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS PROVIDED. DO NOT EDIT ANY OTHER ENTRIES IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
Open the start menu and type “registry editor” (just start typing you don’t need to click anything once the menu is open).
Click on “Best Match - Registry Editor” at the top
Click here to open the registry editor
Follow this path to find the correct key within the Registry Editor (Helpful screenshots below!)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform
If you’re stuck at this point, don’t worry! Keep clicking the little arrows to the left of the folders as you go down each layer of the path. First click the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” folder, then “software”, then “microsoft” etc until you are at the “platform” folder.
At this folder you will see a (Default) key entry there. Ignore this and right click in empty white space and click New > DWORD (32-bit) Value
Name this: EnableFrameServerMode
Make sure this is also set to 0
Restart the PC and try the camera again
Create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value
Name the DWORD EnableFrameServerMode and make sure it’s set to 0
Conclusion
Once you’ve restarted hopefully the camera should now be working! This has fixed five of the laptops that have had this issue so far in our workplace!
Apologies if you still having troubles but hopefully not!
