Windows 7: Crazy Integrated Webcam/USB/Volume problem

Slowly, overtime, my laptop's integrated webcam has 'hit the fan'. I am pretty sure it may be a lose wire, but i cant get inside there because of a stripped screw. The slightest movement of my laptop triggers the webcam's blue indicator light to flicker on and off very briefly and i almost always get the "your device can perform faster" USB notification bubble. Irritating, but i was able to deal with it. But now...



But now the issue is causing my music player's volume to go down on it own. It doesn't happen withing the music player itself, but within volumemixer. The volume goes down to a whisper and just keeps doing this. I cannot get my music to stay at the volume i desire. Another weird thing is that it will leave a more transparent marker at the point the volume WAS set at. Sometimes the real marker will go down but the volume doesnt actually go down and the transparent marker will stay where the volume really is. This all fixes itself when i reopen volume mixer, but will start again when i close my monitor or move my laptop in anyway.

Is there anyway to keep this from happening by disabling the webcam somehow? I have disabled the driver in device manager, but it still does it. Would, perhaps, buying a USB webcam fix the issue some how?

Windows 7 Ultimate
on a Laptop DELL XPS m1530
music players Foobar (and MediaMonkey)
Volume Mixer - Speakers/Headphones (IDT High Definition Audio CODEC)