Author Topic: Avast considerably slows down the booting of the system (According to Soluto)  (Read 40538 times)

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ram1220

  • Guest
I have the exact same problem and i can tell you for sure that's Avast's fault. Or, to be precise, it's the updater's fault: once the boot has ended the updater starts and for some unknown reason it absolutely trashes the hdd -  in, usually, over 2 minutes it manages to make more than 40,000 I/O Reads and over 20,000 I/O Writes. It uses the hdd so much that the entire OS (XP SP3 in my case) is absolutely frozen - nothing moves, nothing works (you can't even open the Task Manager).
No, it's not a bad config, i run a bare bones install of Avast - i disabled WebRep since i've discovered that most of its flags are obsolete and if there is a threat the Web Shield will kick in, the Software Updater and 2 other shields. No. it's not a XP fault - i have just the internet connection and the Opera browser in the autostart and i never have more than 18 processes running (15 at this moment).
No this is clearly caused by a bad coding in the updater. And i can even point when it has started - with the V7. But it has got worse and worse with every new version. At this moment it's so bad that i'm thinking of dumping Avast.


   You are absolutely right. And a note to Aventador. Please reread my post above. I do not have a slow system or numerous items starting upon boot as you suggest. The problem did start with Avast 7 and has gotten worse with each release. I also know what the word bloat means and it's exactly what's happening to Avast. When the only things that change on my computer is the versions of Avast I know the problem lies there. I stopped using AVG years ago because it got too slow and bloated. Just like Avast 8.
  Just for grins I uninstalled Avast 8 today. Installed MSE and the boot up slowdowns are gone. I went back to Avast 8 because I trust Avast a bit better than I do Microsoft. But I would like the speed of my old Avast back again.

ram1220

  • Guest
 I also want to add that my boot up time from cold and dark to full desktop is also under a minute. What I am gripping about are the 2 to 3 minutes after that when I can't use my computer because Avast is hogging it so much it slows to a crawl. After this 2 to 3 minutes then my computer runs extremely fast as it should. See I too can brag about my boot up times.

Johnny4745

  • Guest
I also want to add that my boot up time from cold and dark to full desktop is also under a minute. What I am gripping about are the 2 to 3 minutes after that when I can't use my computer because Avast is hogging it so much it slows to a crawl. After this 2 to 3 minutes then my computer runs extremely fast as it should. See I too can brag about my boot up times.

The problem could be with Avast, but it's not affecting everyone.  If it was bloat, shouldn't everyone experience the same thing?

Try turning Software Updater off, and see if that solves the problem.

Offline bob3160

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I also want to add that my boot up time from cold and dark to full desktop is also under a minute. What I am gripping about are the 2 to 3 minutes after that when I can't use my computer because Avast is hogging it so much it slows to a crawl. After this 2 to 3 minutes then my computer runs extremely fast as it should. See I too can brag about my boot up times.

The problem could be with Avast, but it's not affecting everyone.  If it was bloat, shouldn't everyone experience the same thing?

Try turning Software Updater off, and see if that solves the problem.
It's either a scan or the VBS update process.
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Aventador

  • Guest
You can also have Avast load only after other services are loaded under settings. Seems to me like someone is complaining that after they boot up Avast is slowing there system down. Could be a bandwidth issue which is completely unrelated to Avast. I am on a 20MB connection so I never notice any bandwidth problems.

ComputerRepairTech

  • Guest
You are missing something, the first step to diagnosing this problem is to try to replicate it outside of the initial system boot.

If you stop the avast antivirus service and then start it do you experience the same slow down?

Aventador

  • Guest
You are missing something, the first step to diagnosing this problem is to try to replicate it outside of the initial system boot.

If you stop the avast antivirus service and then start it do you experience the same slow down?

Best thing to do is uninstall Avast and go from there. Reboot several times waiting about 5 min between each boot. See how it goes. Then install Avast. But I agree with you. Miost likely its a software conflict. I only have 8 start up items listed under my start up items in msconfig.

ram1220

  • Guest
  Thanks all for the suggestions. I already have software updater disabled. Went to add/remove programs and did it this way. I have a 12MB internet connection. It's not the internet speed that bogs my system down after boot up. Avast is doing something that I haven't yet figured out. My whole computer becomes unresponsive for 2 to 3 minutes. Avast is hogging my hdd during this time. Like I said yesterday when I uninstalled Avast 8 and tried MSE the problem went away. I went back to Avast 8 and the problem returned. I like Avast the best so I stick with it. After the 2 to 3 minute lag Avast 8 settles down and my computer is fast and back to normal until the next reboot. I would like to know what Avast is doing during this lag time and see if I can put a stop to it. But it's not my computer and it's definitely not my internet connection. I did try the settings within Avast that Aventador suggested and it made no difference. I wish I could find the old post here from about a month ago. There were a few other people that were complaining about the same thing. Someone had a script or something similar that he used that solved the problem. I should have paid closer attention to that post but at the time the lag wasn't bothering me as bad as it is now. To me it has to be with Avast since the lag went away when I uninstalled Avast and used MSE. I guess for now I'll just live with it and go get a snack or a drink of water when I boot up.

Aventador

  • Guest
The only thing Avast does at login is update the data base like any other antivirus does. Unless you have a scheduled scan set up. It could also be a software conflict of something that's running in the background. But only you know what is running on your pc. You can add exclusions into Avast. Exactly how many programs do you have on startup? How many items in your system tray? I only have 6. Avast being one of them and my Google Drive.

ComputerRepairTech

  • Guest
I guess for now I'll just live with it and go get a snack or a drink of water when I boot up.

good idea, ignore my previous post and live with the problem.

Offline bob3160

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I guess for now I'll just live with it and go get a snack or a drink of water when I boot up.

good idea, ignore my previous post and live with the problem.
This provoking post wasn't really needed.   :o
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ComputerRepairTech

  • Guest
I guess for now I'll just live with it and go get a snack or a drink of water when I boot up.

good idea, ignore my previous post and live with the problem.
This provoking post wasn't really needed.   :o

I suppose you're right...i just find this kind of thing annoying.  If we could have resolved the issue we would be helping him and whoever may also be having the exact same issue but instead hes just going to live with it.

Offline Lisandro

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I've used Soluto when I was with Windows 7.
I got inconsistent results and an attribution of all the time to the avast! drivers/services load.
The support of the product was dropped somehow. It's not compatible with Windows 8 and I cannot test it anymore.
It was a good program that did not come out of the "beta" stage if you can understand me.
The best things in life are free.

dor123

  • Guest
My Avast 8, once again took 76 secs to startup during the boot, resulting in a 2:51 mins boot time according to Soluto.

pfcso

  • Guest
Within the last few months or so I started having problems with booting up which were unpredictable.  At the very least booting up was very slow, often taking 5 minutes or more before my PC became usable, but at worst it would get so far through the boot process and then stop responding, the actual point of failure varying each time.  I had no choice but to use the big red switch and reboot from scratch.

OK, so my PC is getting on a bit now, but I am running XP with 2MB RAM and a 2.6GHz processor so it's no slouch. and I load only the bare necessities at boot time.   The problem was annoying rather than debilitating.

I have been reading threads like this one and thought I would try a couple of the suggestions :-
 - I selected the option to load Avast after everything else and
 - I edited the avast5.ini file to delay any updating for 240 seconds as suggested here:-
http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/security/3137-avast-5-configuration-for-faster-start-up.html

Now my PC boots up as it used to ... up and running within 30 seconds.  I may be wrong but it does seem as if Avast is/was the cause of my booting problems.  Is it because, as so often happens with applications like this, the whole package has been enhanced and tweaked so much that it is now, well, bloated?!

I used AVG for a long time but it gradually succumbed to the bloating syndrome.  I then moved to Avast because it had some good write ups and it certainly was much quicker and more responsive.  I do hope something can be done to prevent it going the same way as AVG.