Hi fellow forum members...
We have a Dell Dimension 4600i in for repair. The owner had been using Avast Free edition until his yearly license expired. He liked Avast that much that he purchased the Full Internet Security Suite. However, after installing it, he became very frustrated as the PC would freeze up and become unusable within 3 - 4 minutes after bootup.
He brought the system to ourselves for diagnosis. I have noticed that once the Avast Firewall process starts (afwServ.exe), it utilises 50% total of the CPU time (This PC has 1 Physical CPU, 2 logical processors (Hyper-Threaded)). After a couple of mins this then jumps to 99% and the Entire PC becomes unusable and the PC has to be powered down and restarted. If I disable the Firewall module before the 99% CPU usage happens, the system is OK and then re-enabling the module causes the same thing to happen - 50% for about 1 - 2 minutes then 99% is hit. I have also noticed that the Windows Firewall is not disabled whenever the Avast Firewall is enabled, is this supposed to be the case? Enabling/Disabling the Windows Firewall makes no difference anyhow. The system has been scanned for Spyware/Malware and came out clean, Malwarebytes was used. I have backed up his Avast License and re-installed Avast Internet Security but the same symptoms still occur.
Does anyone out there have any idea's why this is occuring and any fixes? I have noticed from other Forums that this is Alwil's first attempt at their own Software Firewall - is this true and am I (or the PC owner) going to have to wait until this issue has been acknowledged and addressed? Thanks for reading this post and I look forward to any replies!