cpu usage of ashwebsv.exe

[Joey Dalton]

Hello friends,

I scanned this board for an answer but could fine none; sorry if I missed something.

I installed Avast Home edition 4.7 some weeks ago.

In general it works pretty well, however, several times a day the CPU usage goes to a 80-90% telling me ashwebsv.exe is taking about 30% or more. Web browsing has become impossible.

I have Windows XP, Windows firewall disabled and Ashampoo firewall installed. Program ashwebsv.exe has full rights (all ports) in the firewall configuration.

The only program that might (?) interfere is Windows Defender but I have no proof for this whatever.
When cpu usage is extremely high, the Avast icon is not spinning. I tried to kill all processes during this CPU overload but even when Avast was the only running process, CPU usage was still above 80%.

I configured Avast to give me detailled information about what files are being checked; during high CPU usage no file whatever is being checked. The only thing that helps is terminating the Net Shield and restart it (CPU is back to normal then). There is no interesting information in the Windows logs or in the Avast log. I also disabled VRDB generation but without any effect.

Any advice would be more than welcome because I really like Avast and would regret replacing it by (yet) another application.

Thanks in advance,
Joey

[DavidR]

Well as you browse the Web Shield will use CPU cycles, if it is only using 30% what is using the other % of the 80-90% used ?

If the avast icon isn't spinning then it isn't scanning.

If you open Task Manager, Processes tab, that will give you a breakdown of CPU usage by process, what is it when you get these spikes ?

[Joey Dalton]

Hello David,

The problem always occurs when using IE. CPU usage goes to a 80-90%.
What I see is the following:
- Avast icon not spinning
- no network traffic
- Firewall takes 25%
- IE takes 30%
- Ashwebsv takes 30%
- The firewall shows a lot of local traffic (about 400 messages per second!?)
When I kill the firewall both Ashwebsv en IE keep using (still more) CPU.
When I then kill IE (no other applications running) Ashwebsv is still consuming 50-60% CPU.

When the problems occurs and a stop the Netshield protection CPU usage is normal within a couple of seconds; when I restart Netshield, everything stays OK (for some time).

Never had this problem with Firefox. Could it be an IE setting that is wrong?

Regards
Joey

[Vlk]

Are you sure it's the Net Shield? ashWebSv.exe belongs to WEB SHIELD. Network Shield is (should be) completely unrelated.

[Joey Dalton]

Excuses, yes, of course I mean Web Shield.

Joey

[DavidR]

- The firewall shows a lot of local traffic (about 400 messages per second!?)

Can you show some examples of these messages ?

Have you made any changes to the web shield, customize, see image, in particular local communication

[Joey Dalton]

The Web Shield settings are exactly the same as on your picture.

Maybe there is no relation but according to me the CPU load problem starts when I connect to *.spaces.live.com. I have de-installed Windows Defender but without any success.

Sorry to bother you with this problem.

Joey

[DavidR]

On occasion a re-install has resolved high cpu usage (though not in web shield I believe) so that may work as it certainly won't hurt.

Before you try this try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select 'avast! Anti-Virus,' click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow. You need to be on-line to do this.
If that doesn't work try, uninstall, reboot, install, reboot.

[Lisandro]

Activate logging in WebShield:
1. Edit <avast>\data\avast4.ini file
2. Find the section [WebScanner]
3. Add the line:
    EnableLogging=1
4. Restart Web Shield in XP (terminate and start again) or whole PC in case of Win98
5. Browse (trying to access some webpages)

The log file are <avast>\data\log\ashwebsv.log and ashwebsv.ws.
They would be accessible when WebShield is terminated again.
Post them here or send by mail to rypacek (at) asw.cz
After that, disable the logging to avoid a big log file.

[Joey Dalton]

Dear friends,

Yesterday I have deinstalled Avast, booted my PC and re-installed Avast.
Today the old problem occurred again.
I will follow the last recommendation and create a log.
I did some checks during a CPU peak and found the following (might be interesting?):

Ashwebsv:

Virtual memory
* private bytes 10.312 K
* peak private bytes 14.600 K
* virtual size 87.600 K
* page faults 3.154.555 and speeding up!
* page fault delta 3875

I/O
reads 3111
writes 2739
other 6.767.865 and speeding up!

Threads
All CPU is used by advap132.dll!cryptverifysignatureW+0x17

Hope this might give you some more facts.
Regards,
Joey

[Lisandro]

If you Google for advap132.dll won't any link be useful?

[WuLFe]

i reckon that its part of windows, and its description is Advanced Windows 32 Base API, check this site out:

http://www.easydesksoftware.com/winlist.htm

have you tried using a registry cleaner? after uninstall or before install of avast! i mean... Regsupreme is good one, just use its normal mode scan

[RJARRRPCGP]

The correct filename is ADVAPI32.DLL. Not ADVAP132.DLL!

[Joey Dalton]

Dear Friends,

I followed your advice and *keep my fingers crossed* the problem seems to have been fixed.
What did I do?
- Downloaded RegSupreme
- removed Avast
- ran RegSupreme (found a lot of problems)
- installed Avast
- replaced advapi32.dll (downloaded from Internet); the version number is the same as the 'old' dll (5.1.2600.2180) but the filesize is different (602 Kb instead of 668 Kb);

Thank you all again for your quick and professional advice!
Joey