Battery life and HP printer drivers

[someoneinwa]

My SP3 has been in daily use since launch day and I've always had battery life that gets me through my work day with plenty to spare. Until recently. The battery meter will be less than half by the end of work and doing my NYT crossword at night (an app that makes a big draw on the battery for some reason), I now have to hook up to power. The only thing that has changed in the past few months was my installation of new HP Envy printers at both home and work. There are two different models. I downloaded the full featured drivers and I have enjoyed wirelessly printing from the SP3.

Is it likely that these full featured drivers are the cause of my significantly reduced battery life? Can I roll back to just use a basic driver for the printers? I'm using the Envy 7640 and 4500.

Thanks for any help.

 

[stephen_az]

My SP3 has been in daily use since launch day and I've always had battery life that gets me through my work day with plenty to spare. Until recently. The battery meter will be less than half by the end of work and doing my NYT crossword at night (an app that makes a big draw on the battery for some reason), I now have to hook up to power. The only thing that has changed in the past few months was my installation of new HP Envy printers at both home and work. There are two different models. I downloaded the full featured drivers and I have enjoyed wirelessly printing from the SP3.

Is it likely that these full featured drivers are the cause of my significantly reduced battery life? Can I roll back to just use a basic driver for the printers? I'm using the Envy 7640 and 4500.

Thanks for any help.

In my experience, HP drivers are extremely invasive and poorly designed. I choose to avoid HP printers in part because of driver problems. Whether it is the source of your problem though is an open question. Any number of things can impact battery life, including the device just getting older although that seems a bit early. Personally, what I would do is go to task manager and disable all of the bits HP pre-loads. Actually most of the stuff you will find being loaded at startup can be disabled unless startup functionality is needed for something. If battery life improves you have identified the source....

 

[hotphil]

You can uninstall most of the crapware that HP ship from the Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs section. Unless of course you really use the various Customer Improvement Programs, Ink Supply Shop and other cruft.

 

[CliveSinclair]

I have a Instant Ink Envy 4500 series printer. As others have said HP printer software is 'super bloatware'. I never even considered installing the software. Printer works fine without it. SP3 picked the device up and I can scan, etc and print to it no issues at all.

 

[Guzzler3]

There are certain features that you might need, that are only in the HP printer drivers (ex: Borderless printing). IF you have to install HP printer drivers, always download the "basic" printer driver, avoid the full feature download (massively bloated) if you have a choice and if you really need the extra features.

The other thing is if you have a MFP (printer, scanner, fax). The scan to PC feature will wear down your batter because it stays active to much. I haven't figured out how to disable it, yet (just been lazy).

This advise works for all printer manufacturers. I've seen worse drivers from other manufactures in the past.

 

[kenjancef]

I have a Instant Ink Envy 4500 series printer. As others have said HP printer software is 'super bloatware'. I never even considered installing the software. Printer works fine without it. SP3 picked the device up and I can scan, etc and print to it no issues at all.

I have an OfficeJet 6700. My SP3 found the printer without me even having to look for it. I've been in IT for about 15 years, and I've NEVER seen a more bloated set of driver/software than what HP offers. But there is software for a lot of the HP's that you can stop the other crap from installing. Just read the install instruction REALLY good and chances are you can get to the part to not have the other stuff installed. Thankfully, for now, I don't need anything but basic printing with my SP3.

 

[someoneinwa]

Thank you for all of the helpful advice. From Control Panel I deleted everything HP installed with those two new printers except for the basic drivers. After a restart (just to be safe), I've already noticed that my battery life has returned to normal. I like HP printers, but wow, I wonder how many people blame their laptops or tablets, or Windows, for problems HP is responsible for.