Have been running Ubuntu on my Compaq C757 reliably since 9.10. Currently running a fresh install of 12.04 LTS. Somewhere during my regular updates, my webcam started flashing its power light. Light flashes from logon screen all throughout my session. I am not running Google Chrome but chromium and firefox. Webcam works normally whenever I run Cheese webcam booth, light comes on solid and webcam works normally. I close out of Cheese, webcam shuts off, and then the light starts blinking again. My system is dual boot, when I boot into Windows 7, webcam does not exhibit this problem. I suspect issue may be related to new laptop power management settings in kernel based on research on the web of similar problems, but I do not know how to instruct it to treat webcam differently.