Terrible battery life on new HP Envy

[cjechurchill]

- I recently purchased a HP Envy 15 - ep0008na  4 days ago

- I have updated everything via Windows Update and installed the drivers from HP

- On battery saver mode, with the fans on default, with only Netflix open in Edge (no other background tasks running) at 40% brightness, I am getting about 3.5 hours battery.....

- The fans also come on randomly just when I am doing something simple like watching netflix or looking on pinterest.

I tried uninstalling the battery drivers, that didn't work.

[WAWood]

@cjechurchill 

You said you are using Netflix -- so you are streaming. 

When my laptop is streaming, it drives all four processor cores to nearly 100%.  So, that uses up a LOT of power -- and that will drain the battery. 

This is to be expected.

[cjechurchill]

Come on... We both know 3.5 hours battery watching Netflix on a brand new laptop is completely unacceptable. 

[WAWood]

@cjechurchill 

I understand your point of view -- just saying that when I stream on my laptop, processor pings at nearly 100% on all four cores all the time -- and the battery plummets like a rock.

IF you suspect the battery is prematurely failing, then You can check the battery to some extent using Powershell built into Windows 10. as follows:
1) Press Windows key + X
2) Click Powershell in the menu
3) Type powercfg /batteryreport

This will generate a report and if you scroll down, you will see Design Capacity and Full Charge Capacity ratings. If the Full Charge Capacity is less than 50% of the Design Capacity, it is faulty and needs to be replaced.

Also note the figure alongside the "Cycle Count". This tells how many times the battery has been fully recharged. A typical battery can handle around 500 charge cycles, but some will fail sooner than that.