I've had this Inspiron 17 5000 series with windows 8.1 for about a year now. About a month ago I noticed Skype wasn't detecting a webcam any more. It used to work just fine.
I've had a look at the integrated webcam in Device Manager and noticed it says it's 'Not connected (code 45), please reconnect' in properties. I tried searching for drivers - Windows claims the drivers are the newest. I had a look on the Dell website but there doesn't seem to be any drivers for webcams there for this model.
I then tried uninstalling the webcam as per advice given from someone from Dell on a forum on the basis that Windows would detect it and re-install. This didn't work, I had to do a quick system restore to get it to recognise the webcam again.
I then tried downloading and installing some Dell Webcam Centre thing which didn't really do much at all unless I'm missing something. It just seems to be video editing software (which doesn't recognise the webcam).
Finally, I tried making another account on this PC. Still nothing.
I'm at the end of my rope here, I don't know what else I can try - or why it stopped working in the first place. Before you ask, I've made no changes, haven't mucked around with system files or anything. It just stopped for no apparent reason.