The Image Source DMK31 does not work with Windows 8.1and Intel USB3.0 host controller. This is what I had to find out recently….

But lets start from the beginning: Recently I bought a new notebook with USB3.0 ports. In general I thought USB2.0 devices should be back-compatible to USB3.0. However for the DMK31AU03.AS this assumption did not hold.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get the device to work with my new Lenovo Thinkpad T540p. After some research I found out that the problem seems to be caused by the Intel USB controller implementation (because the camera seems to work on some other USB 3.0 ports with other controllers). Similar problems seem to occur for other DMK models as well.

When I plug in the camera I hear the typical Windows sound that a new device has been connected (I am currently using Windows 8.1 for astrophotography since not all devices are working correctly with Linux :-(). However, no new device shows up in the “Device Manager”. I also updated to the latest chipset and host controller drivers and of course I tried different USB cables and ports. The camera still works fine with my old notebook on an USB2 port.

However, when I start the supplied capture software no camera is recognized. I tried to install the latest driver from the official driver page but before it can be installed it checks if a compatible device is connected. The installer does not recognize the device either. So I am not able to install the latest DMK driver at all.

I contacted the support… It turned out that they are aware of the problem and that they are working on it. I didn’t hear back from them and so I contacted them again. Then they told me that they unfortunately are not able to deliver a fix.

My conclusion

For a camera in that price range which is designed to be used by the industry I expected more. In my eyes it is a “no-go” to just not support USB3.0 completely which should be backwards compatible with USB2.0. I think it is not just the fault of the “The Image Source” company that different USB implementations behave differently. However, I think they should have supplied a bug fix for this problem later on. So even if the camera did a good job with my old notebook (USB2.0) I unfortunately cannot recommend that DMK31 “The Image Source” camera to others with USB3.0 ports. Bummer!

Last updated: July 23, 2022 at 12:49 pm