Author Topic: Avast slowing down boot  (Read 14556 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

flieg

  • Guest
Avast slowing down boot
« on: June 13, 2012, 12:16:26 AM »
For the past some months I have been having slow boot up and a lot of disk activity during bootup.

I had thought it was Thunderbird because I keep all my email, but I removed T-bird from the boot sequence and it was still slow.  That caused me to check System Manager and it shows that AvastSvc.exe and Avast.setup are thrashing the disk and gobbling cpu.  This is strange because my wife's installation of Avast doesn't seem to be doing this (at least to the extent of it being a noticeable delay).

What is Avast doing?  I thought it might be the rootkit scan, then I saw that that scan is done some time later.

It's really irritating and it clearly is related to my machine.

Running 7.0.1426 Avast (Paid), Definitions up to date.

WinXP Home SP3 up to date
   AMD Athlon 64 3200+
       ASUS A8N-E Motherboard
       2 GM RAM
       C:\  232GB, 100 GB used  (this is the disk being thrashed)
       F:\  700GB, 252 GB used  (this is my backup disk)

Not sure what else to put.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2012, 01:44:54 AM by flieg »

Offline Asyn

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Certainly Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 76037
    • >>>  Avast Forum - Deutschsprachiger Bereich  <<<
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2012, 07:11:35 AM »
1. avast! GUI -> Settings -> Troubleshooting -> Enable: "Load avast! services only after other system services"
2. Click OK.
3. Reboot.
W8.1 [x64] - Avast Free AV 23.3.8047.BC [UI.757] - Firefox ESR 102.9 [NS/uBO/PB] - Thunderbird 102.9.1
Avast-Tools: Secure Browser 109.0 - Cleanup 23.1 - SecureLine 5.18 - DriverUpdater 23.1 - CCleaner 6.01
Avast Wissenswertes (Downloads, Anleitungen & Infos): https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=60523.0

flieg

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2012, 10:55:26 AM »
I already did that (and it is still set that way).  However, that did not change the behavior.

Offline bs

  • Avast team
  • Jr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 28
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2012, 11:44:11 AM »
Try to find out by disabling shields, which shield is responsible for this slowing down. And write here your findings. Thanks.

Offline CraigB

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Serious Graphoman
  • *****
  • Posts: 11239
  • No support PM's thanks
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2012, 11:57:09 AM »
Any other security installed on the system ? what was the previous AV and how did you remove it ? did you run the vendors removal tool to eliminate remnants ?

swrain

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2012, 07:34:52 PM »
I noticed this too, but I removed a few other anti-malware programs I had and it sped up. I don't think it's avast!'s problem, I think it's just conflicting with other programs.

If it still persists, that just might be how it is. A lot of the time anti-malware programs will slow down boot just because they are rooted in to protect your system.

flieg

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2012, 09:49:16 PM »
Any other security installed on the system ? what was the previous AV and how did you remove it ? did you run the vendors removal tool to eliminate remnants ?

Previous AV was McAfee and I used  the vendor's removal tool (and then salted the drive sectors).  That was more than a year ago.

I don't have any other AV installed that I know of.  I have installed Malwarebytes, but it's set to start when I ask for it, not automagically.  I also have IObit's Advanced System Care installed, and again have it disabled as a default.

Try to find out by disabling shields, which shield is responsible for this slowing down. And write here your findings. Thanks.

Looking at my interface I see that I have all shields currently enabled and that WebShield, File System Shield, Network Shield and Behavior Shield are the only ones that indicate any activity.  I will try deactivating them, then reactivating one by one.  Report to come later.

I noticed this too, but I removed a few other anti-malware programs I had and it sped up. I don't think it's avast!'s problem, I think it's just conflicting with other programs.

If it still persists, that just might be how it is. A lot of the time anti-malware programs will slow down boot just because they are rooted in to protect your system.
All that is true, but it doesn't explain why my wife's system boots rapidly.


swrain

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2012, 09:58:40 PM »
flieg,

Have you tried matching the same exact settings on your avast! with your wife's? Maybe that will work.

flieg

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2012, 10:27:49 PM »
flieg,

Have you tried matching the same exact settings on your avast! with your wife's? Maybe that will work.

That was going to be the next step -- though with the number of settings it's going to be hard to verify.

Analysis of the shield settings seems to indicate that it is the File System Shield that is partially to blame, but even with all shields disabled Avast was thrashing the disk (as shown by the System Monitor, looking at reads and writes.)  Naturally I am loathe to run without the File System Shield.  I am currently rebooting my wife's computer to do comparisons of activity.

I would like to thank the various people who have responded so far.  More in just a bit.

Offline DavidR

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Certainly Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 88900
  • No support PMs thanks
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2012, 10:34:31 PM »
If you have made any changes to your installation of avast you could try resetting the defaults and see is that resolves it.

From the avastUI, Maintenance, Troubleshooting, Restore factory defaults, see image, click to expand.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.2.6105 (build 24.2.8918.824) UI 1.0.799/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

flieg

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #10 on: June 13, 2012, 10:49:18 PM »
Well it looks as if my wife's avast! is set up the same as mine.  She is, however on a more modern computer and running XP Pro, so results are not strictly comparable.  Her File System Shield is hitting many more files than mine on bootup, too (about 280 vs my 140).

It may just mean that my comp is getting old and slow.

I have made changes to the setup in terms of allowing certain programs to evade the sandbox, etc.  Since I haven't recorded the changes I am resistant to doing a reset.

As I said, it is an annoyance, not a critical problem.  Since there is no clear and easy (fix/correction of user error), I'll live with it.  Thanks for assistance.

swrain

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2012, 10:53:46 PM »
It may just mean that my comp is getting old and slow.

Not sure if you have done this already, but lets see if your theory is correct. Why not uninstall avast!, and then restart twice, and see if it's any faster?

flieg

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2012, 12:21:37 AM »
I don't need to do that, swrain.  I was following the disk and cpu usage using the System Monitor and the only thing active in the disk-thrashing cycle was Avast.  Besides, the idea of booting without AV in place gives me the screaming meemies.  :)

swrain

  • Guest
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2012, 12:49:06 AM »
Haha, I know what you mean.

Oh well, good luck to you.

Offline DavidR

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Certainly Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 88900
  • No support PMs thanks
Re: Avast slowing down boot
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2012, 01:35:10 AM »
I don't need to do that, swrain.  I was following the disk and cpu usage using the System Monitor and the only thing active in the disk-thrashing cycle was Avast.  Besides, the idea of booting without AV in place gives me the screaming meemies.  :)

The fact that the only thing active being avastSvc.exe (File System Shield) isn't entirely correct as the avastSvc.exe doesn't just scanning for no reason as it is an on-access scanner, so something is opening files, etc. causing avast to scan them.

The trick is trying to find what is responsible for that activity.

Some considerable time ago, my firewall also had an anti-spyware module, if that was enables that literally touched hundreds of files and that cause avast to scan the files it was opening.

In your case if the FSS is only scanning 140 files during boot, that is darn low and shouldn't be giving your hard disk a thrashing. Do you happen to have the winXP indexing service running as that can be responsible for a lot of HD activity ?

Another area is MS Office if you have that, the Fast Find is another one that can give your HD a workout.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.2.6105 (build 24.2.8918.824) UI 1.0.799/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security