Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 built in camera bad color balance

[timeshifter]

Went to Costco and bought a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for a client. Took it over Friday afternoon and did the full setup, backed up her old computer, fabs it over to the new one, installed all her apps and settings, etc. Took about for hours.

At the end of the day the last step was showing her how to use Zoom and video conferencing on it. She'd already been doing a bunch of this on her Dell XPS 13, which stupidly has the camera on the bottom left of the screen! Anyway, she does a lot of speaking engagements, etc. and most them are online now, so getting a newer computer with a camera in the right spot was supposed to be helpful.

But, this one kinda sucks.

The colors are a little off. Too gray. Looks like a sepia tone, but not that bad. Maybe like a soft focus older movie. I've compared three other computers with it in the same lighting and they're fine in comparison.

So far I've:

• Updated the drivers
• Deleted from device manager and reinstalled
• Looked everywhere for any settings to control color balance
• Talked to Costco concierge support. Their next step is to do an in place reinstall (then a clean install if that doesn't work, and then call Lenovo as last step... I'm not willing to try that yet as I've got a ton of time invested getting everything loaded)
• Tried to update to Windows 10 2004 but it won't, says there's some settings issue that's not been worked out yet.

The Costco tech said he's seen this before and that software reinstalls fixed, but he wasn't too convincing. I can't exchange it at Costco as it was a close out.

Not sure what to do next?

 

[HFultzjr]

What software is running the camera.
If it's only Zoom, I'm pretty sure there are some settings to play with.
They may be under "Advanced", as Zoom sometimes buries important info........LOL!

 

[timeshifter]

What software is running the camera.
If it's only Zoom, I'm pretty sure there are some settings to play with.
They may be under "Advanced", as Zoom sometimes buries important info........LOL!

Looked for settings in Zoom but couldn’t find any. Windows 10 has a built in camera app. Picture quality was the same on both.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Is in the camera or the screen? Did you look at the picture transmitted to another pc?

 

[timeshifter]

That’s a good thought that I’ll double check, but I recall seeing it that way on my iPhone when we did a test Zoom call.

 

[timeshifter]

Lenovo new laptop:

Dell laptop (correct colors)

 

[timeshifter]

That’s a good thought that I’ll double check, but I recall seeing it that way on my iPhone when we did a test Zoom call.

It's not the laptop displaying poorly. The photos above were in her Camera Roll and I emailed them to myself and screenshotted them. It's definitely the source image at this point, not the display.

Can anyone recommend a quick ISO download of a Linux distro that I could boot and test the camera with, without altering the drive on this machine?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Ubuntu

 

[Romaniac]

Image the drive you put all that time into and try Costco tech's thing; you never know.

 

[timeshifter]

Ubuntu

I downloaded Ubuntu 20.04 LTS as an ISO and booted it. Looked through every app I could find and didn't see anything like the Camera app in Windows 10. Need anything, hopefully already baked in, that will activate the built in webcam on the machine and let me take a few snapshots, or at least see what it see.

Image the drive you put all that time into and try Costco tech's thing; you never know.

I'm getting ready to do that, but I'd like a less destructive and less time consuming method if possible. And as much as I love imaging, I worried it might get messed up in the process.

 

[HFultzjr]

Sure is looking more like a hardware (camera) issue.
Ubuntu will tell for sure.
If it is a defective camera, watch out for a "30 day" warranty.
Since it was a closeout I would think it would have a full warranty.
You wouldn't happen to have an external USB camera to attach and check?
Also, just for $hits and Giggles, try and clean the lens, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a dirty lens.

 

[nlinecomputers]

try and clean the lens, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a dirty lens.

Also make sure there isn’t a plastic film protector on it.

 

[HCHTech]

Also, just for $hits and Giggles, try and clean the lens, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a dirty lens.

Or check for a layer of removable plastic over the lens. I had a case like that. That little circle of plastic was just barely bigger than the opening, and we had left it on after setup. All of the video was blurry until we peeled that sucker off.

Edit: Nline! you beat me to it!

 

[timeshifter]

Looked through every app I could find and didn't see anything like the Camera app in Windows 10. Need anything, hopefully already baked in, that will activate the built in webcam on the machine and let me take a few snapshots, or at least see what it see.

Still hoping to find a bootable OS that has a simple built in webcam to test this. Couldn't find it in the Ubuntu I ran. Anyone know?

 

[NJW]

Still hoping to find a bootable OS that has a simple built in webcam to test this. Couldn't find it in the Ubuntu I ran.

AFAIK, cheese is installed by default and should be on the live image.