F200 DCM will not install due to Renesas USB controller

[Jarrod_H_]

Edit: I think I realized the issue - I'm not running Haswell or above. :(

Hello,

I have a Thinkpad T420s that I'd love to use for development with my F200 USB camera. However, I can't install the DCM due to an error requiring the installation of the Intel eXtensible Host Controller Driver. I tried to do this but can't because the T420s uses a controller from Renesas, so it seems I will not be able to install the DCM despite the camera showing up in Device Manager (in Win 7 and 10). I was under the assumption that any USB 3 controller would work, but I was apparently mistaken. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[MartyG]

Having a non-Haswell or later processor (e.g Broadwell or Skylake) is not necessarily a total block to using the camera as it does work with non-standard CPUs, though you won't be able to use some of the features that rely on the specific chip architecture of these processors.  Having said that, the processor in your ThinkPad seems to be a 2nd Generation (Haswell is 4th Generation), so its age means that it's likely not going to be the most effective way to use the RealSense camera.

I recall that there were members on this forum back around autumn-winter 2014 who were having difficulty getting the camera to work because of USB driver issues.  The two common solutions ot the problem were:

1.  Go into the BIOS configuration settings of the computer (accessed with a key-press as soon as the computer starts up, before it begins loading Windows) and enable an option called XHCI.  

Or

2.  Uninstall the USB driver that was causing the conflict and install a different USB driver, such as the official Microsoft Windows one.

[Jarrod_H_]

Thank you for your advice! I tried both options but am still stuck.

I did a little more digging about Intel chipsets, and unfortunately my Thinkpad is a series 6, which does not have integrated Intel USB 3 support, whereas series 7 and up do. This is why I can't install the required Intel driver and, thus (if I understand properly), why I won't be able to use the camera on this device. Bummer.

[MartyG]

All hope is not completely lost regarding USB 3.  You can add USB 3 with an external plug-in device called an ExpressCard.  They are less common these days, but your ThinkPad T420s does seem to have an Expresscard slot as it was built around 2011.

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/documents/pd015743

An ExpressCard to add a USB 3.0 port to your computer is about $15 to $30 on Amazon.  Search for 'expresscard usb 3.0'.