Crippling hdd activity during boot

[REDACTED]

Lately Avast has started to freeze my XP machine during boot. To be more precisely the AvastSvc process starts thrashing the hdd for minutes at every boot, up until it reaches something like 220,000 I/O reads. Unfortunately it doesn't always goes this smooth - the entire system remains frozen and i have to reboot. Practically i have to plan 15 minutes in advance, at least, when i want to use the pc.
Is there anything i could do to fix this or i just just give up on Avast after 13 years of good services?

[Asyn]

- Which Avast..? (Free/Pro/IS/Premier)
- Which version..?
- OS..? (32/64 Bit..? - which SP/Build..?)
- Other security related software installed..?
- Which AV(s) did you use before Avast..?

[DavidR]

Have you changed any of the default settings ?

If so it might be worth setting it back to the default settings, avastUI > Settings > Troubleshooting > Restore Factory Defaults.

[REDACTED]

- Which Avast..? (Free/Pro/IS/Premier)
- Which version..?
- OS..? (32/64 Bit..? - which SP/Build..?)
- Other security related software installed..?
- Which AV(s) did you use before Avast..?

The latest Free build, 12.3.2280.
As i said, it XP SP3 with all the official updates.
Active? None whatsoever. But on demand i have MBAM - and the crashes and incompatibility that this causes during scans have been eliminated by adding the respective folders to the exclusion list.
Some custom McAfee that came with the first motherboard that made my first ME pc, almost 15 years ago. Avast ever since.

Have you changed any of the default settings ?
If so it might be worth setting it back to the default settings, avastUI > Settings > Troubleshooting > Restore Factory Defaults.

That was the first thing i tried when i begun experiencing these problem with the first 12 version, followed closely by a full untouched reinstall - no effect, it only made my pc a little slower on the average usage, past boot. That was fixed by removing all the bloatware, but the freezes and crashes caused by the service at boot remain.
 I should add that  the problem caused by this service gets bigger by the day, as the amount of data accessed by the process immediately after boot rises every day - it's now at over 230.000 I/O reads and 80.000 I/O writes.

[DavidR]

For me the avastsvc.exe I/O reads are 162,550 and I/O writes are 81,673. With avastUI.exe I/O writes on 190,745, but I'm not experiencing any issues.

If I order the task manager by I/O writes avastsvc.exe comes in 5th and avastUI.exe at 9th. The others above avastsvc.exe are considerably higher.

But for whatever reason I don't suffer in this way, check my system specs in my signature below my posts.

[REDACTED]

For me the avastsvc.exe I/O reads are 162,550 and I/O writes are 81,673. With avastUI.exe I/O writes on 190,745, but I'm not experiencing any issues.
If I order the task manager by I/O writes avastsvc.exe comes in 5th and avastUI.exe at 9th. The others above avastsvc.exe are considerably higher.
But for whatever reason I don't suffer in this way, check my system specs in my signature below my posts.

It's far worse in my case, after a day of usage it's quite common for the I/O numbers to easily go past 750.000. I really need to severely use some programs to go past those Avast numbers - usually the AvastSvc has more than all the other put together
This example is immediately after boot. Well, 5 minutes after boot, because if i try to open TM when Avast is doing its thing the only way out of the freeze is a hard reset.

[DavidR]

Wow, I don't know what is going on with your system, I have 43 processes running.

What are you seeing in the way of CPU and RAM activity ?
I'm not really sure how the I/O reads & writes would impact performance if CPU isn't high as well.

Whilst this I wouldn't have though would be an issue, but for the latest versions of avast, there is another system requirement for avast on XP. The CPU has to support SSE2 and on an old system with XP there is a possibility that you also have an old CPU. That said I would have thought that would have stopped the installation if your CPU didn't support SSE2.

[REDACTED]

I've severely trimmed every single service and feature from XP that i don't really need - so i never go above 23 processes, no matter the load. And no, it's no problem, quite the contrary.
As i said, the very specific problem happens strictly during and immediately after the boot, after that i just experience some extra hdd activity but only in very few cases - heavy games or more than 100 tabs open in Opera. To put it simply, Avasts uses the entire hdd bandwidth for itself during and immediately after boot and even more on occasions and the entire Windows freezes, completely unresponsive during that or for good, from which only a hard reset works..
This isn't a hardware problem, the pc works perfectly with Avast uninstalled. I'm even doing a test with Bitdefender Free latest version right now and while the lack of control will definitely stop me from trying it for longer it has at least confirmed that this is strictly an Avast issue.

[DavidR]

Your CPU supports SSE2, so I'm at a loss at to what it might be.

[Asyn]

Follow instructions: https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB33#artTitle

[REDACTED]

I would, if Avast would still be installed on my system. But since i've switched to Bitdefender Free i can't at the moment. When i'll install Avast's next version as a last hurrah i'll do just that if the problem is still there. Until then,
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

[Asyn]

OK, you're welcome.

[alicia.rose]

"Crippling hdd activity during boot"

I have this problem too, previously asked for help. Heavy scanning activity, which makes my computer unusable for 10 or so minutes after booting, the time I need to use it most.

XP SP3

Avast Free 12.3.2280, also had the same problem with Avast Free 2015.10.2.2218 the last version I had.

No other security except CryptoPrevent / Windows Firewall.