Same memory problem, somewhat different situation

[zephyr]

Hello all, I am wondering if you can help me with a problem with Avast. I've been searching the support forum for the past couple of hours or so and changing my settings accordingly in windows safemode, but have thus far unable to solve my problem (other than an uninstall of Avast). Similiar to others, the problem is ashServ.exe taking up 50% of memory (I believe this means 100% CPU usage for 1 CPU in the dual core). The occurance of this seems random at first, but it's getting more and more frequently. Right now it's happening everytime I boot up.
 
When this happens, system response will be extremely slow, and my windows taskbar will stop responding (and thus I cannot even see if the Avast icon is spinning or not, nor can I click on it to see what exactly is being scanned). What I know is that this process hangs windows for good and nothing will proceed even if I leave the PC along for 10-20 minutes. The process also stops other processes and programs that are running after it. For example, SoundMax will not be initialized so I will not hear some system sounds (instead getting the hardware beep from my machine), and MSN messenger will not run or only run half-way and hangs.
 
When I open the Services list, Avast's status will show as "starting" rather than "started" or "stopped", and I cannot choose to start or stop it.
 
-Windows XP SP2
-No other anti-virus programs
-No other anti-spyware/adware programs
-No firewall programs, other than window's default firewall (I do have a Linksys wireless router that may have firewall, I have not yet looked into it).
 
Thanks for your help in advance. If you need any information, let me know.

[Lisandro]

the problem is ashServ.exe taking up 50% of memory

Vlk posted...

The guidelines for solving of the problem "ashServ.exe using too much CPU" has always been the same:

1. Check if the avast tray icon is spinning (while CPU usage is high)
2. If it is, click it (wait for the dialog box to open), and check which file is being scanned (the Last Scanned field); the Scanned Count value should be increasing (spinning icon means a scan is in progress)
3. Find out which of the providers is scanning the file (click "Details" button and check out the Last Scanned value for each of the providers). The most common providers that may cause this are Standard Shield, P2P Shield and IM Shield.

[zephyr]

Hence why I said "similiar problem but different situation" :p

I was unable to apply the general solution, as the consumption of CPU hangs my taskbar, and I am not able to see the Avast icon, nor to click on it to even begin to trace the problem.

[Lisandro]

Hence why I said "similiar problem but different situation" :p

Sorry, just trying to help...

I was unable to apply the general solution, as the consumption of CPU hangs my taskbar, and I am not able to see the Avast icon, nor to click on it to even begin to trace the problem.

Could you, in that situation, at least, discover which file is being scanned or which process is crashing with avast?
If not, I can't imagine a way to traceback or debug the problem...
If you could generate a dump, Vlk explains how to create a dump file here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22636.msg187340#msg187340 and here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=23283.msg193594#msg193594 

Also, check the folder <avast>\data\log
Are there any files called unpXXXX there  (where XXXX is a random number)?
If so, send them to vlk (at) avast.com
They may contain more information about the problem (maybe a link to this thread).