Avast makes XP start slowly

[fredstotle]

Greetings all.

Finding XP was starting very slowly I looked at Task Manager and found twenty one copies of AshWebSv were running. They disappeared eventually - it took about twenty minutes.

This may be known stuff, but I'd welcome any comments.

Thanks

David

[DavidR]

This is most certainly not normal behaviour as the task manager should show one process for ashWebSv.exe.

What other security software do you have installed ?

What is your firewall ?

Have (or did) you another Anti-Virus installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

[fredstotle]

Hi Uberevangelist from a definitely Unter ditto. Thanks for your reply.

My machine had got in a mess while I was in hospital, but I've now tidied it up, and it still happens.

1. I normally Hibernate the computer between sessions. I'm not yet sure what happens on restart from this.

2. I've just had to do a cold restart following a crash. It got going with Task manager showing 5 copies of ashwebserv with mem usage similar on all and varying between 1k and 50k mem usage. This was similar on all copies, but not identical. CPU usage was minimal, usualy showing zero. This built up to 14 copies today for about 10 minutes, when it dropped to 11, then 4, then one.

3. As part of the tidy up, I now have
                  AVAST, currently running Internet mail, standard, and web.
                   Ad-aware
                    SpyBot
                   PCTools FirewallPlus free edition.

4. The machine is an oldish Dell Dimension2400 with 512MB of ram.

5. I always used to use AVG, but went over to Avast after AVG8 which seemed to slow everything down to a crawl

Thanks

David

[DavidR]

Re AVG, try this tool to ensure that you have got rid of all remnants - AVG8.x Remover, download tool from here, http://www.avg.com/download-tools there is a 32bit and 64 bit windows version, ensure you use the correct one.

Having done that if it isn't resolved, try a repair of avast. Add Remove programs, select 'avast! Anti-Virus,' click the Change/Remove button and scroll down to Repair, click next and follow.

If that doesn't resolve it it would be best to do a clean reinstall:
Download the latest version of avast (if you didn't save the previous download) http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall. Ensure that you scroll down and select the avast direct download link for the English version and not Cnet as that is for an on-line installation (not what you want to do). - Direct download for avast Home, English version, http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe.

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

• 1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can't do that start from the next step), reboot.
• 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot.  If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.
• 3. install the latest version, reboot.

[scythe944]

In addition to David's replies, even though I think fully removing AVG and repairing Avast should do the trick, you might have some malware that is attempting to open browsers (although I highly doubt it).

After you get done with David's suggestions, should you still have problems, try downloading malwarebytes from http://www.malwarebytes.org, update it, and run a quick scan.

I don't suggest keeping spybot anymore besides for it's immunization features.  It's dated and hasn't been much help in a while.  You don't have to get rid of it though, if you don't want.

Hope you get all fixed up!

[Yanto.Chiang]

Hi Fred,

As additional information,

Please try to do a memory scan at Safemode display with your XP.

I am afraid that could be a virus which attacked your memory, so make your memory always running a heavy job.