After upgrading to Avast 7, my PC now constantly stops and starts. The icon continuously spins in spurts. Trying to do anything on the PC is now worse as Avast is clearly grabbing and releasing processor time. It is also flashing my hard drive lights on and off constantly (reading or writing).
I have used CTRL ALT DELETE to monitor the processor usage and Avast seems to be grabbing around 50% on average of my PC's speed. This can jump higher or lower. Of course this means every other program runs slower, and in spurts as a result.
Trying to select text, or move the cursor across text, is no longer smooth, but goes in stops and starts.
My PC uses an AMD XP2000+ processor running at 1.7GHz. I am on Windows XP SP3. I have 1.25GB of RAM.
I would like to know what Avast is doing - is it running virus scans in real time? I thought it was downloading from the cloud but the problem also occurs when I am offline.
I have just looked at the Real-Time Shields tab and the icon for 'File System Shield' is flashing on and off with a value of 9000 and counting. OK, so I guess it is scanning all my files now. Is it safe to turn this feature off? It doesn't seem to be helping my poor PC!
Perhaps Avast is aimed at multi-core PCs, where one core can be dedicated to the anti-virus scanner. Alas I am on a single core PC where I need all the processor speed available for running Windows.
Thanks for all help and advice given.
