ashServ.exe scanning whilst in-game

[Chris L]

Hello  ,

When I'm playing Counter-Strike: Source (this game requires a good CPU, not GPU to achieve a high frame rate), I sometimes notice my frames per second goes down from a high rate (~100) to a very low rate (~20), this doesn't occur very often but I've noticed in Task Manager that "ashServ.exe" must be scanning files for infections because the Peak Memory Usage is quite high ~ 60,000 K, and the CPU is around the 30s.

I am asking if there is anyway to completely stop avast! resident protection from scanning whilst I am in a full-screen application/game, as I think this is what is causing the slow gaming. I have also noticed that the priority for "ashServ.exe" is set to High. I will try and set the priority to Normal, to see if that affects game play.

Here's my system specs:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+
2GB - 4 x Corsair XMS3200 512MB
Western Digital SATA 160GB 7200rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT 512MB
Antec TruePower Trio 550W 24-pin
On-board 7.1 sound
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2

I know that my system is clean from infections etc, because I do several scans daily (and I also use avast!  ), I am a very cautious user. I have ran Disk Defrag & Disk Cleanup etc.

The problem could be the updates for the game itself because the creator VALVe has quite a reputation for breaking things when they release an update, but I'm just curious of whether I can experiment with other things first.

I also have another query. When opening Internet Explorer 6, I am shown the avast! Script Blocker splash image. I'm sorry but, is there anyway to remove/disable this?

Thanks a bunch!

[igor]

No, there's no way to stop the resident protection when playing (other than you manually pause/stop the protection before you start the game, and resume it when you're finished).
If it's really the scanner causing the slowdown (which I don't think), you can try to find out what it is scanning (e.g. by checking the "Last scanned" field in Standard Shield properties) and put the corresponding file/folder into the list of Standard Shield exclusions - so that it's not scanned anymore in the future.

The slowdown might also be caused by an automatic update, however (in which case the CPU intensive process would be avast.setup) - in that case, I'd suggest to try the latest beta which limits CPU usage somehow for automatic updates.

[Chris L]

Hi, thanks for the prompt reply. I have checked the last scanned option, and I will next time I experience the game slowdown, is there any logging settings which I can change to show a more complex "Last scanned"? Thanks

Also, I will try the latest BETA later on. Is there an solution to my other query in my first post?

Thanks for your help 

[Lisandro]

Is there an solution to my other query in my first post?

I also have another query. When opening Internet Explorer 6, I am shown the avast! Script Blocker splash image. I'm sorry but, is there anyway to remove/disable this?

Sure... uncheck the option "Show splash window at startup..."