I was running the latest Avast with XP Sp3, on slow laptop, 1500ghz? with 256 ram, and I have now uninstalled. I changed to avast a long time ago, and uninstalled avg properly, and it has only been recently I have had this problem with avast.
I read up here about the avast ashwebsev.exe having 5 or 6 instances running on start up, and mine has got up to 13 sometimes and just keeps going until it uses all memory, then virtual memory, then after about 30 minutes, it usually starts turning them off, one by one until finally you only have one running, then the .setup file hogs the rest of what memory is left, and maybe after 45 minutes, I can use the computer.
I have uninstalled, reinstalled, used the uninstaller, then reinstalled again, and I finally admit defeat. No other virus things running, even uninstalled zone alarm, and just run windows firewall, and it still does it. Yes, ram is cheap and 6 months ago, this booted at 512, now it doesn't! Trying to find ram old enough to go in this old laptop most likely won't be easy, so are just running with NO virus checker. Nope I don't like it either. Tried the new microsoft one, and that won't even start on this old girl
So just thought I would add my bit so maybe the techie has a bit more information to work with.
I dont think browsers are related to this problem. I reinstalled and updated my avast. And after reb0ot my pc starts to hang. I check on my task manager and there is 5 or 6 ashwebsv.Exe is running and it eats a lot of memory.
That most certainly isn't normal as there should only be one instance of ashWebSv.exe running your installation is somehow corrupt.
What is your Operating System ?
What is/are your browser/s ?
Have (or did) you another Anti-Virus installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
I would suggest a clean reinstall, but if advised after giving the above answers:
Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall. Ensure that you scroll down and select the avast direct download link for the English version and not Cnet as that is for an on-line installation (not what you want to do). - Direct download for avast Home, English version, http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe.
Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD. - 1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.
- 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot. If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.
- 3. install the latest version, reboot.