ashServ.exe uses 99% of CPU frequently

[Henny]

I have Avast Home installed on 3 computers, but the only one running Win XP gets incredibly slow when Avast is doing his thing. Don't exactly know what it's doing, but the A-icon in the systemtray is spinning. Well, 'spinning' is a big word....it very slowly turns the A around in fractions of millimeters at a time. This takes about 3 to 6 minuts I guess, before it is finally done.

During those 3 to 6 minuts, I can't do anything with my computer. It is SO incredibly slow. Keyboard and mouse do respond, but very slowly too. I can type a couple of lines before I can see the characters appear on the screen. Some programs even generate "not responding" errors, which I ignore, because I know when Avast is done doing what he does, everything will turn back to normal.

Well, to make a long story short....it's beginning to annoy me.
Is there some way to fix this problem? Does it have something to do with Windows XP perhaps?
My computer is a P4 2Ghz with 1GB of memory.

My settings of the Standard Shield resident provider are...basicly the way Avast installed itself. I didn't customize it in any way. Only checked the 'protect any emailaccount I will create in the future' box while installing.
Sensitivity is high. Anything else you want to know?

I have no other antivirus products installed. The one in the BIOS is switched off too. I use Sygate Personal Firewall. Settings of Avast and Sygate are all the same on all three computers. Only the XP computer has this problem.

Apart from this little problem, I just love avast and recomment it to anyone I know.

Thanks in advance for the advice.
Henny

[Starfighter]

Perhaps Avast is trying to perform a VRDB? Thus causing your system to slow down.   Click on the blue ball i or a icon and disable VRDB generation and see if that solves the problem....

Also, could you be running Microsoft's "Fast Find" in the background?  That can also slow things down.

[Henny]

I disabled VRDB generation and Fast Find is not running (nasty feature indeed).  But still the PC slows down when the blue ball with the A starts spinning.

[KezzerDrix]

might make sure that Avast is only scanning infectable files.  It may be scanning unnecessary objects.  It is in the options somewhere.  Sorry that I can't tell you specifically where.

[Henny]

Thanks for the tip.
I noticed in "Scanner (advanced)" the "scan created/modified files" checked. Unchecked it now.....and now we wait and see what happens

[Vlk]

Do you happen to have a P2P program running? BitTorrent for example?? Just downloading *large* file(s)?

[Henny]

KezzerDrix : To bad.....it didn't work

Vlk: Yes, but  the biggest file I download is 50MB.

[KezzerDrix]

Err, not exactly what I meant.  I found that Avast will scan jpegs, mpegs, iso's, etc these are not viral infectable files.  You can exclude them, by either selecting the folder where they are stored or by changing an option to not scanning noninfectable files.  I am not at my home pc or I could give you the direct path. (sorry)  

Could be that you are downloading something and when you go to open it Avast! scans it.  This can take alot of unnessary resources.

[Henny]

Well, the problem doesn't only occur when I open files. It occurs randomly. Even when I'm just chatting.
I'll see if I can get a timeframe. If it happens every 30 minuts or so, maybe it's easier to determent why it happens.

[Vlk]

Try pausing the P2P Shield. It's likely the one that's causing the problems.

What P2P software do you use? And what is the "Scan count" value for the P2P shield? (double-click the avast (a) tray icon, and choose "Details >>" to access P2P Shield's settings/stats).

Thanks
Vlk

[Henny]

The scancount of P2Pshield is 15499
Run time: 1:08:35:09

Which looked quite much to me, so I checked the Standard shield:
Standard Shiled scancount: 25845
So p2p scancount isn't as much as I thought...

I'll pause the p2pshield and see if it helps.

[Henny]

Disabled the P2P scan........didn't help either  :'(

[RejZoR]

If you disable it during Bittorrent download,it wont help. I recommend that you remove(uncheck) Bittorent P2P protection and restart the machine. Bittorrent downloads are much more reliable and virus free than any other P2P. Also Standard Shield will take care for files so don't worry about protection
This appears to be a problem because of small downloads chunk size of bittorrent transfers and high download speeds.

You can also try removing P2P provider entirely. I did because of the same problem. Use Add-Remove Programs and select Change in avast! Uninstall utility

[Henny]

With a modest possitive feelling I dare to say......I think we fixed it
I uninstalled the P2P part, and I didn't see it slowing down anymore.
Okay, I haven't been at my computer much the last couple of days, but I doubt that I missed all the slow-downs

Thank you all very much for all the help  

[Kobra]

This sure sounds like P2P aspect scanning each "Hash" of the torrent in realtime.  This is actually pretty common with Antivirus's.  Might I ask with torrent client you use?  I'm going to throw out a guess and say Azureus.

Let me know. Thanks