Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: B Trevathan on July 25, 2011, 07:07:26 PM
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I just installed Avast free antivirus 6.0.1203 on a Compaq Presario SR1303WM running Windows XP with service pack 2 after installation upon restarting the speaker icon is missing from the system tray and I have no start up or shutdown sounds and no system tray balloon popup sounds and when in My Computer there are no sounds. I can hear files when I play them in players like Windows Media Player, Itunes and Rhapsody. If I go into the control panel I can adjust the volume there and hear it.
I checked it is not muted and I checked that Silent/gaming mode was not selected. After using MSConfig to disable avastUI from start up and restarting the speaker icon was back in the system tray but still no start up sounds so I stop the Avast service and I tried to change its start up type to disabled but I got an access is denied warning. Upon restarting in normal configuration I am right back where I started with no speaker icon in the system tray and no system sounds.
??? Help Please ???
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Try another reboot and you should really upgrade your xp to SP3.
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...and you should really upgrade your xp to SP3.
+1 Do this asap..!!
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Try another reboot and you should really upgrade your xp to SP3.
Reboots didn't help.
I would like to update but this computer only has 256 MB of RAM and 64 MB of that is being used for video leaving only 192 MB to work with and every update will make this computer slower and slower, it already takes forever to do anything and also this is not my computer I am doing this for somebody.
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...and you should really upgrade your xp to SP3.
+1 Do this asap..!!
Believe me I know, I know, I would like to update but this computer only has 256 MB of RAM and 64 MB of that is being used for video leaving only 192 MB to work with and every update will make this computer slower and slower, it already takes forever to do anything and also this is not my computer I am doing this for somebody.
What can I do to fix the problem (without updating or adding more memory) ???
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What was the previous av and how did you remove it ? what is the systems audio ? ie( realtek )
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I have recently read (and posted) some other topic about sounds and Avast not working as it is supposed to work, but no actual resolution was found.
[OT] and JFYI, installing SP3 "shouldn't" request more resources than SP2, and there are reported cases here in the forum where Avast should be removed (using the Clean Uninstall utility from Avast) before updating to SP3 (related to changes in Windows Validation/Registration after the SP3 update). In any case, I have no idea if updating to SP3 is going to resolve your problem.
[/OT]
Being at least the second case, I think that someone from Avast Team should come to this topic to provide some specific technical guidance (so to solve the problem for "all" users/cases).
EDIT_UPDATE: I think the other topic was: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=81521.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=81521.0)
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What was the previous av and how did you remove it ? what is the systems audio ? ie( realtek )
norton 2006 and it was not working right and warning that it needed actvion, I think in add/remove programs it said last used in November 2006. I uninstalled it and all norton/symantec programs and rebooted each time and then used norton's removal tool for extra good measure and I restarted a few times after that before installing Avast. The sound worked fine until after installing Avast and restarting then thats when the problem started. I think the audio is realtek not sure though but seems like I remember it saying realtek97 or something like that??
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ady4um the avast sounds issue in that topic is completly unrelated to this issue regarding system sounds.
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What was the previous av and how did you remove it ? what is the systems audio ? ie( realtek )
norton 2006 and it was not working right and warning that it needed actvion, I think in add/remove programs it said last used in November 2006. I uninstalled it and all norton/symantec programs and rebooted each time and then used norton's removal tool for extra good measure and I restarted a few times after that before installing Avast. The sound worked fine until after installing Avast and restarting then thats when the problem started. I think the audio is realtek not sure though but seems like I remember it saying realtek97 or something like that??
Please check the audio in device manager, does it have a check mark over it ? if so try repairing avast first then reboot but i dont think that will help but worth a try, if still no change uninstall avast, does it work now ? if yes then you may have to go to device manager and see if you can update the drivers for the audio before reinstalling avast.
Actually you can try updating the drivers first if you like.
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@ B Trevathan
No wish to state the blindingly obvious, but did you check if it is hidden using the left < icon in the tray ?
You could also try place the Volume icon in the task bar notification area again, see image2.
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I have recently read (and posted) some other topic about sounds and Avast not working as it is supposed to work, but no actual resolution was found.
[OT] and JFYI, installing SP3 "shouldn't" request more resources than SP2, and there are reported cases here in the forum where Avast should be removed (using the Clean Uninstall utility from Avast) before updating to SP3 (related to changes in Windows Validation/Registration after the SP3 update). In any case, I have no idea if updating to SP3 is going to resolve your problem.
[/OT]
Being at least the second case, I think that someone from Avast Team should come to this topic to provide some specific technical guidance (so to solve the problem for "all" users/cases).
EDIT_UPDATE: I think the other topic was: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=81521.0 (http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=81521.0)
Believe me I've been doing this for a while and anytime you do an update it will slow down your computer a little bit and if you do several updates at once like with a service pack you will really notice the slow down, don't take my word for it try doing a N&P, format and install Windows XP on a machine with only 256 MB of RAM and notice how fast everything pops up then start installing each service pack and see if it doesn't slows down.
In that topic I think hes talking only about sounds related to Avast where as I am talking about problems with system sounds.
I did a search before starting this topic and found a few post similar to my problem but they were old post and running windows 98
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Please check the audio in device manager, does it have a check mark over it ?
In device manager I didn't see any check marks or exclamation points on anything when this problem started but I'll check again.
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@ B Trevathan
No wish to state the blindingly obvious, but did you check if it is hidden using the left < icon in the tray ?
You could also try place the Volume icon in the task bar notification area again, see image2.
Thats a good point though, one of the first things I do is unlock the task bar and unhide hidden icons in the tray.
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Believe me I've been doing this for a while and anytime you do an update it will slow down your computer a little bit and if you do several updates at once like with a service pack you will really notice the slow down, don't take my word for it try doing a N&P, format and install Windows XP on a machine with only 256 MB of RAM and notice how fast everything pops up then start installing each service pack and see if it doesn't slows down.
Well, SP3 is actually faster than SP2. ;)
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@ B Trevathan
No wish to state the blindingly obvious, but did you check if it is hidden using the left < icon in the tray ?
You could also try place the Volume icon in the task bar notification area again, see image2.
Thats a good point though, one of the first things I do is unlock the task bar and unhide hidden icons in the tray.
You could try toggling the setting off (if it is on) and applying the change, then toggle it back on on and apply the changes again.
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You could try toggling the setting off (if it is on) and applying the change, then toggle it back on on and apply the changes again.
Tried that it didn't work.
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Checked for a updated driver but the one on the website is the same version as the one installed.
Rechecked Device Manager, no check marks or exclamation points on anything, everything says that it is working properly.
The audio is Reltek AC'97 Audio for VIA (R) Audio Controller.
This computer is so slow. It takes 16 minutes from the time I turn the computer on to the time everything is loaded.
Restarted twice and the sound worked right but didn't play a start up sound. Upon restarting for a third time no sound again, my guess is that on the third time Avast loaded before sound card drivers, I'm 99% sure this problem is caused by Avast?
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As with other cases, when it is suggested to Clean Uninstall Avast using the Avast utility under Windows Safe Mode, it "may" be effective to REdownload the latest drivers anew, uninstall the "old" (current) ones, reboot (twice please) and install the just downloaded drivers (and reboot again befoer testing). Who knows?
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Hmmm somthing is seirously wrong with your computer as it takes 16mins to boot up! must have lots of background proceses going off/ malware!!!!!!!!
Reading you had norton on it. Need to use their removal tool to get rid of norton.
Use crap cleaner to remove all junk files and registry cleaner within it.
download & run malware bytes free to test for spyware and remove what it finds on full scan.
Remove avast free then CLICK MY COMPUTER RIGHT CLICK C: DRIVE OR ROOT DRIVE WITH OPERATING SYSTEM / PROPERTIES /TOOLS /ERROR CHECKING Tick check now/repair and recovery bad sectors & reboot. After that run defrag in run box
after that repair job if your sound works download sp3 through windows update and go to that and reload avast.
It should be quite quick with 256mb of ram installed but is bare minimum for reliability 512mb on my computer is plenty like a rocket!
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Hmmm somthing is seirously wrong with your computer as it takes 16mins to boot up! must have lots of background proceses going off/ malware!!!!!!!!
Reading you had norton on it. Need to use their removal tool to get rid of norton.
Use crap cleaner to remove all junk files and registry cleaner within it.
download & run malware bytes free to test for spyware and remove what it finds on full scan.
Remove avast free then CLICK MY COMPUTER RIGHT CLICK C: DRIVE OR ROOT DRIVE WITH OPERATING SYSTEM / PROPERTIES /TOOLS /ERROR CHECKING Tick check now/repair and recovery bad sectors & reboot. After that run defrag in run box
after that repair job if your sound works download sp3 through windows update and go to that and reload avast.
It should be quite quick with 256mb of ram installed but is bare minimum for reliability 512mb on my computer is plenty like a rocket!
Not enough memory, only 256 MB with 64 MB of that being used for video. An extra 256 MB would make a world of difference.
They have a lot that loads at start up and each thing use a portion of the 192 MB that is left:
- USB Card Reader (built in)
- Notice that updates are ready
- Network
- Printer
- Quicktime
- Malwarebytes Pro
- Windows Messenger
- Yahoo! Music Jukebox
- Avast
- HP Digital Imaging Monitor
- Adobe Photo Downloader
- And Sound when it does load
No malware but they are really into music, the drive has lots and lots of songs. They have three or four player installed.
If you read all my post again you will see that I did use norton's removal tool.
It has Malwarebytes Pro installed, it finds nothing.
Avast's boot time scan didn't find much, and it moved what it did find to the chest.
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Working on this thing going so slow is wearing me out, I have told them that it needs more memory before I try to do anything else to it, but they didn't want to spend the money so I'm not going to waste any more time on it.
Thanks for the help.
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Yes more ram would make it run better. But on a clean instal of xp will run quick even as low as 128mb of ram but alot of hard drive churning though!.
Must be alot of start up items try msconfig and reduce the group start up items to try and gain some speed?
How much free space is on the hard drive? if it is less than 18% free you will start to have problems running windows. System restore points take up alot of room on the hard drive. try cleaning out them?/ clean out c:/windows software distrobution /download files folder (will contain GBs of junk in here (safe to remove)
ah avast did find something and moved to chest and must be something on the computer then!
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Any up to date security is going to have problems on 256, if not now then soon.
I have a 256 machine......one of the only things I can stomach running on it is Puppy Linux, so I can imagine XP would have probelms. ;)
The time has come for you to invest in some RAM, imo. Cheap to buy, easy to install....unless you are just having so much fun on 256, you don't want to leave (doubt that). ;D
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Go into msconfig\startups and untick Adobe Photo Downloader, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Windows Messenger, Quicktime as these program can start when needed and do not need to start at boot.
Also go to avast settings - troubleshooting and set avast services to load after other system services, would also help to not run malwarebytes in realtime on that system.
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I am very close to the same situation as far as using Avast free antivirus 6.0.1203 on a Compaq Presario SR1710NX with ONLY 256 RAM memory running Windows XP with service pack 3. Of course my situation is different in that I'm using service pack 3 instead of service pack 2.
I agree that it would be wise to go with service pack 3 as it is or will be very soon the only XP operating system that MS will support going forward for awhile. Also there are a lot of issues with service pack 2 that are resolved with service pack 3 which includes not just security but compatibility as well. I would that I would agree that with 256 MB ram it gets pretty darn slow when updates are running i.e. Avast for example, to the point that the computer very nearly comes to a stand still for some time. Because of this I ONLY have Avast that runs "automatic updates" along with PEN for email notification.
That said, I didn't see any appreciable increase in slowing down at these times with service pack 3 compared to service pack 2.
As far as the missing volume control icon in the system tray is concerned. I've noticed that a couple of the icons WILL disappear from the system tray from time to time. They include the volume control icon mentioned in this thread and in my case PEN email notifier as well. What will happen is they will disappear for a while and usually return, but sometimes will not.
I have improved on this situation by not having ANY system update programs running in background with the ONE exception of AVAST. So I've got "Windows Defender" on "manual" updates as well as "Automatic updates" in the "Security Center" (program updates) as well as "HPDJ Task bar utility" and "HP Software" updates etc. These are all a drag on the system and are utilities I can do manually at my convenience.
By keeping the start-up processes that would normally be running all the time at a minimum like I mentioned above all I have to deal with is when Avast updates which as I mentioned admittedly does really bring the system to a crawl. Other than that however, I have generally AVOIDED the "missing icons" issue in the system tray including the volume control icon by limiting the update types of programs that start-up on boot-up thus this pretty much addresses the issue in this thread and the system runs reasonably fast considering the limited RAM as long as AVAST IS NOT UPDATING THE VIRUS DATA BASE THAT IS :-[
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I have improved on this situation by not having ANY system update programs running in background with the ONE exception of AVAST. So I've got "Windows Defender" on "manual" updates as well as "Automatic updates" in the "Security Center" (program updates) as well as "HPDJ Task bar utility" and "HP Software" updates etc. These are all a drag on the system and are utilities I can do manually at my convenience.
You do not need "Windows Defender" with XP and it takes a lot of RAM so I would un-install it.
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I have improved on this situation by not having ANY system update programs running in background with the ONE exception of AVAST. So I've got "Windows Defender" on "manual" updates as well as "Automatic updates" in the "Security Center" (program updates) as well as "HPDJ Task bar utility" and "HP Software" updates etc. These are all a drag on the system and are utilities I can do manually at my convenience.
You do not need "Windows Defender" with XP and it takes a lot of RAM so I would un-install it.
Why is it NOT NEEDED with specifically JUST XP?
You don't think Windows Defender (WD) is worth having as a second layer of malware protection?
So the "real time protections" for WD takes up a lot of RAM?
Task Manager shows WD (MsMpEng.exe) using 388 Kilobytes to 1.5 megabytes. By comparison Avast (AvastSvc.exe) is generally running in a range of about 20 to 45 times that using approx between 8-17 Megabytes.
Or are you saying the "real-time scan" takes a lot of CPU usage? Unnecessary duplication with Avast?
I'll try ANYTHING to avoid the system slowing down to a crawl (generally locking up) whenever AVAST IS DOING VIRUS DATABASE UPDATES!!.
If you really think it's that much of a resource hog (I have no idea) then it would still seem to be a good backup scan device for malware (just don't use the real-time protection and instead manually update the database and manually scan). Am I wrong here?
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Defender on xp is pretty useless and poor detection rate,best to just uninstall it.
If you want an excellent scanner for second opinion use malwarebytes, with the free version you just run an update before scanning.
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Defender on xp is pretty useless and poor detection rate,best to just uninstall it.
If you want an excellent scanner for second opinion use malwarebytes, with the free version you just run an update before scanning.
+1
Malwarebytes is the best second opinion scanner.
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All these latest post are OT. Probably the Volume icon in the tray area is just hidden by other icons. The "Task Bar and Start Menu Properties" has an option to "hide inactive icons". Since users are not using the volume icon so frequently, then Windows hides it. Changing the setting ( UN-ticking the check box of that "hide inactive icons" option) should display all available tray icons. In addition, the Volume icon "can" be disabled (independently of the "hide inactive icons" setting). So, if both settings are correct, the icon should be displayed (specially if the sounds are actually being heard).
If I'm not mistaken, this was already mentioned before. The only thing that this topic needs is a simple post with confirmation that changing this specific setting is the "solution".