Blurry webcam on T420s

[turomini]

Hi.
I noticed about 2 days ago that my webcam on my T420s suddenly became blurry. It always had a good image quality and then I went to use it and everything is fuzzy, low details, etc. First just restarted my laptop, then uninstalled the webcam, deleted the drivers, and downloaded a new driver from the lenovo site. Nothing provided any change to the image quality.

Would the communication software have any effect on this?
I tried to look up the problem, but all I saw was unanswered questions and potentially hardware issues.
Before I tear the screen apart to get to the webcam and check if the cable somehow came lose, is there any software solutions? Maybe some setting somewhere? Did the webcam card somehow partially die?

[ajkula66]

Try booting a "live" Linux CD/DVD/USB and check for picture quality in that environment.

[turomini]

Hi,
I tried the live ubuntu on an external hard drive but I will have to try again when I have time. The webcam wasn't detected and something didn't seem correct about it. I haven't used a Linux in a few years now, so maybe I'm just outdated.
I'm going to try again probably tomorrow.
Sorry for the slow response, just been too tired after other projects.

[brchan]

This may be a silly question to ask, but did you try cleaning the clear plastic in front of the webcam?

[turomini]

This may be a silly question to ask, but did you try cleaning the clear plastic in front of the webcam?

No clear protective cover over the webcam, that was removed long ago.
The plastic housing piece looks clean and wasn't touched for a long time. I've been lazy about cleaning my screen recently, and I clean that piece with the screen.