100% cpu usage problem identified...and chas_m wins!

[davester]

OK, it took a few days but my powerbook started acting up again. The machine completely bogged down and I checked on activity monitor. Sure enough, as chas_m predicted the "hp director" software was taking up about 70+% of CPU resources, even though there was no evidence that it was even running. What kind of moron designs that kind of software? More to the point, how am I going to be able to print to the HP printers at work without using it?

[Carm]

Force Quit that piece of crap when you are not going to print. Its not like you are printing 24/7 or are you?

Joe

[Racer X]

I did some work with M$ in about 2000 when XP was in beta form, and I was told by the software engineer I was working with that HP drivers were the worst pieces of crap that M$ ever had to deal with. M$ was working with HP to ensure that the HP{ drivers would function properly. How's that for running around in circles?

[MacMagus]

> M$ was working with HP to ensure that the HP{ drivers would function
> properly. How's that for running around in circles?

That's not the kicker. MS has to work with lots of companies to ensure compatibility with their horrifically opaque and undocumented API's. They even came out with a patch for Vista to make it stop trashing iPods.

The kicker to the HP story is that after a 3 year delay for "final" MS certified HP drivers, the installer caused fatal registry corruption on XP Home computers.

[Racer X]

not that surprised.

When the software engineer asked what my techniques and work-arounds I have used over the years when installers go bad, I happily replied "I use a mac" She just smiled, as her back was to a video camera, and she couldn't say anything out loud. But I pretty much think that was her thought too. many of the software engineers at M$ have at least some Mac experience.

[GeneL]

Of course, chas_m wins! All this sounds very familiar

Several years ago I bought a top-of-the-line HP Scanjet 8200 scanner.

Mostly because it opened from the side rather than the end and the place I had to keep it was on a shelf with little clearance to raise an end-hinged scanner. On top of the form factor it was legal size, had built-in slide scanning and very high resolution.

As it turned out, I mostly used it for copying and quickly ran into problems with the HP software and drivers. I often ended up with spinning beach balls and ended up having to either force quit or even worse to power off the computer and restart.

Now, after not using it for a long time, I thought I give it another try with HP's latest drivers.

Sad to say, no better luck except now when I do successfully complete a scan to copy, I get a dialog saying that the image is too big and do I want to scale it. This produces a copy, but, of course it's smaller than the original.

I finally found the four year extended warranty that I purchased directly from HP and called the number.

I've now spent hours on call after call, working with some very pleasant tech support guys, who obviously want to fix the problem, they even sent me an expensive automatic document feeder, but…

…the bottom line is that they can reproduce the problem there in their facility (these are Mac guys) and after doing everything they can think of, it boils down to a basic problem with the software, At this point they can't do a thing for me except to say they passed it along to the software "people" and they don't have any idea when (and if) there will be a fix.

From what I can tell, HP doesn't give a crap about Mac business, even though they advertise and sell their printers and scanners as Mac compatible.

Class action anyone?

[Racer X]

I would have to say that if the feature set of the PC software is far better than the Mac software, there is some merit in that.

[RAMd®d]

I agree in the merit, Racer.

Using Windows from time to time, it's disappointing to see features show up in the Ctrl-P window that I've never seen in any Mac.

And that's using other printers than HP.

[BigGuynRusty]

Another POS software package. the CanoScan "Chunk 'O' Crap", great hardware though. Naming the scanned files, it usese DOS naming conventions, while just idling in the background it uses 50% of each CPU on my 2GHz DPG5 with 8GB of RAM.

BGnR
Yes, I wish I could use another scanning package, but alas nothing else works!

[chas_m]

[quote davester]OK, it took a few days but my powerbook started acting up again. The machine completely bogged down and I checked on activity monitor. Sure enough, as chas_m predicted the "hp director" software was taking up about 70+% of CPU resources, even though there was no evidence that it was even running. What kind of moron designs that kind of software? More to the point, how am I going to be able to print to the HP printers at work without using it?
The problem is that HP's driver software runs in the background beginning at startup. After a random period of time, the HP daemon "goes nuts" and starts hogging the processor. You can't predict when this will happen, but you'll notice the effect.

The only solution I've found is to open Activity Monitor and force quit the HP software. It should simply reload when you want to print, so I don't think there will be a real problem with you using HP printers, but the point is that HP software SHOULD NOT BEHAVE THIS WAY.

Your only other option is to avoid buying or using HP printer or scanner products next time, and to tell them exactly why you are going elsewhere. No other scanner maker suffers this problem (background daemons run amok), so it's on HP to fix it.