Memory usage revisited(?)

[northhill]

I'm trying to find things that slow my WinXP SP3 system down to a crawl at times
Why does the 4.8 home edition require over 70,000k? (as seen in the Task Manager)

[Vladimyr]

Usage displayed in Task Manager is not the most accurate and will vary depending on what avast! is doing.

Do you have very limited RAM and or slow hard disk I/O?

Does your TM look something like this?

[northhill]

Looks similar, except my numbers are higher. ashWEBsv.exe is around 52,000kv and stays up there, and ashServ.exe is around 14,000k and is consistent also.
Those seem high to me, especially the ashWEBsv!

I have 3GB ram, so I don't think that is a problem, and my hard drives are fast as they get for a desktop machine. 7200rpm is what comes to mind without checking. 

[DavidR]

The web shield is scanning your web traffic so if you have been browsing it would seem high, the VM Size is said by one of the Alwil team to be a better guide.

However as you browse, etc. this figure is going to fluctuate and in the scheme of things is still small. Currently firefox is using 110MB, explorer 27MB, my firewall 40MB. There are many greater hogs, which when you consider avast is a security application it is light compared to many others. See my usage and my system has been in use most of the day. RAM is there to be used and when you have 3GB a drop in the ocean by comparison.

[northhill]

I'll monitor it for a while.
But last night it was at the 51,000 to 54,000k level when I had no browsers nor email running. Just playing Freecell until bedtime.

EDIT: I've sat here a while with nothing running except WinXP, and the ashWEBsv stayed at 52,000k and ashServ at 18,000k.

Still seems high to me when there is no activity bis the web(that I am aware of anyways).

[northhill]

After monitoring Avast in the Task Manager for a couple of days. I find that when I have NOT connected to any thing that goes to sites outside of my PC, the numbers for ashWEBsv and ashServ are very low numbers.
BUT, once connected to the web, in ANY fashion, the numbers climb to what I have reported earlier, and DO NOT reduce when I terminate a web session.
My PC starts slowing down once that happens. Not dramatically, but enough to be noticeable. This is a disappointment, as Avast is excellent in all other ways!

[DavidR]

I'm still seeing broadly the same figures from my last image I posted, I really don't know exactly who controls the handing back of memory, avast or windows, I suspect it is windows.

Though even with the figures you report I don't find that high, as I said before, given that you have 3GB of RAM absolutely tiny.

[northhill]

Yeah, I know they are small, but I'd think they would go away when not being used.
Here is a capture after a PC restart and Avast connecting to 'update'. THe numbers were way low before the udate check, and what the image shows is after and nothing else running(that I am aware of anyway)
EDIT: Sorry, I should have cut it down some

[DavidR]

The update is memory and cpu intensive as it performs integrity checks.

I believe that unless you have changed the windows default memory handling windows basically manages memory allocation and redistribution.

Again my settings are broadly the same as before (also just done an auto update) and as I have said before one of the Alwil team reports that the VM size is the more accurate figure and yours is pretty much the same as mine. So it could simply be the tools used and what figure you are looking at.