Slow Quick Scan

[DavidR]

Given your system resources, I would say that this is a major contributory factor to the slow speed of the scan.

Vista is a bit of a resource hog and the 64bit version even more so. As a rule of thumb I use 2MB of RAM as a minimum for win7 32bit and that by all accounts is less of a resource hog than vista. So for the 64bit version of the OS I would recommend 4GB of RAM. With this I feel that you would see an overall improvement in system performance.

Your CPU is pretty old single core version, it is a bit of a restriction as the CPU Sempron LE-1300 isn't very fast.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Sempron+LE-1300

So I believe you are hitting the limits of your system resources, upgrading RAM is a relatively easy and inexpensive option. Upgrading the CPU to a later faster one isn't so easy A) you have to find one that fits and is compatible with your motherboard and B) then fit it, this isn't so easy.

[VFN]

I suppose it could be my hardware.

Thanks for your help.

[DavidR]

You're welcome.

I don't know how frequently you actually run an on-demand scan ?
- With a resident on-access antivirus like avast, the need for frequent on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part the on-demand scan is going to be scanning files that would be otherwise be dormant or inert. If they were active files then the on-access file system shield would be scanning them before being created, modified, opened or executed.

I have avast set to do a scheduled weekly Quick scan, set at a time and day that I know the computer will be on. If for some reason my system wasn't on, no big deal I will catch up on the next scheduled scan.

[VFN]

Yeah, I don't scan much so its not a big deal. A 20 minute scan is also no problem. I just wondered whether it was functioning correctly.

Thanks again.

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

[MikeBCda]

Starting slightly O/T, I'm curious -- do all types of on-demand scans (I'm thinking specifically of full and quick scans) use the same permanent-cache files?  I'm pretty sure they do, but if each has its own then possibly that could be part of the problem.

I generally run a full scan weekly, which for around 12 GB (including the default types of archives) runs about 30 minutes.  I keep the one most recent log to compare time with the current scan, and I've been surprised to see as much as 5 minutes difference even with no changes to speak of.

I did try a quick scan once, using the same settings, and didn't find it that much faster, maybe 15 minutes ... I can remember when a full scan took less than that, but of course avast has evolved to become more thorough in its scans.

Obviously my system's pretty antique too ... it was only a few months ago that I finally upped my RAM to a full gig.  Out of curiosity, would a newer and better system (which I'm getting close to due for) increase the difference between full and quick scans?

[DavidR]

As far as I'm aware it is a single copy of either cache Persistent or Transient and these would be used for all scans, not just on-demand. It wouldn't make sense to have multiple different copies for different scans.