High resource usage when scanning anything

[ninjageek]

Lately I've found that my system becomes almost completely unresponsive when avast is scanning something, whether automatically or via a scheduled scan. This is particularly annoying when trying to download something in firefox/steam or copy files to/from a flash dive. Avast also seems to scan folder contents when opening a folder, even if it has already scanned them today, which takes folders forever to open.

Anybody have any suggestions?

[Pondus]

what OS ?
what CPU ?
ram ?


do you have any other security programs installed ?

[ninjageek]

I'm running this on Windows 7 Pro x64, 6 GB ram, Pentium D @ 2.4 GHz. I don't have any other AV programs installed, as I've seen what happens when you have more than one.

This problem has slowly been getting worse on me for about 2 months, and the other day it finally irked me enough to post this.

[Pondus]

well....i have no idea why          guess i would try a reinstall and see if that help
remove with the uninstall tool and reboot...
install again and reboot....
http://www.avast.com/en-eu/uninstall-utility



OBS: i guess this is a very new machine ?
did it come with preinstalled AV ?
did you use a removal tool to clear any leftovers after uninstall ?

[ninjageek]

I'll give the uninstaller a try, cheers.

No, this is not a new machine. I build it about 4 years ago, and upgraded to Windows 7 about 2 years ago. I've only ever used Avast on my windows 7 install.

::Followup:
the uninstaller did its job. Everything sped right back up again without Avast. It bogged down again after I reinstalled it though.

[MikeBCda]

I assume you cleaned up (or, like me, never encountered) that bad-defs problem from last week?  One of its characteristics was that one of avast's services used so much CPU that nothing else could load, including most of the rest of avast and the firewall.

[ninjageek]

I wasn't even aware that there was a bad update issue. maybe that had some effect on me. I don't know.

On a potentially related note, Process explorer works again.

[ady4um]

Windows Seven SP1? Other Windows Updates? Drivers (specially those for storage)?

Have you performed the removal procedure for each and every avast version ever installed?

Are you using the latest stable version of avast (currently 6.0.1367)?

Other security tools currently installed?

Other security tools previously installed?

Previous antivirus before avast?

Other software running in the back (like backup / image tools, P2P, "optimizers", traffic...)?

Other software in some auto start up mode?

[YoKenny]

I have no problem on my Windows 7 system with high resource usage when using any scan.

[CraigB]

Had you altered and of the default setting's inside avast? namely ticking the scan all files box in scan when opening \ scan when writing under the file system shield setting's.

[ninjageek]

I don't remember changing any of the settings, other than disabling sounds, but that shouldn't make a difference. The problem also seems to have gotten better over the past few days, and I can't seem to find any reason why it changed. As long as it's better, I guess it's fine.