I noticed in the Task Manager that the system process ashServ.exe uses a substantial amount of CPU (50%) and runs for a loooooooong time in my Windows SP2 P4 2.8 system.
What gives?
Have no clue, but I’ve noticed exactly the same thing last two days… booting into Windows after logging on lasts forever comparing to what it looked like before.
Alwil, what is happening ?
Note: Haven’t installed any new program since two weeks ago…
Firewall: Kerio 4.2.0
No problems at all here.
mediterranean,
check if avast is scanning something and tell us what provider is causing this.
Did you chose to scan all files?
It makes slower on scan of zipped files.
And if you have too much downloads at the same time through web or some kind of P2P.
If so, you can exclude that folder where downloads is, and scan it after download completed.
It’s not during the downloads, and it’s not related to any avast! provider. I am long enough in here to overlook it just like that.
I don’t have any problems with avast! whatsoever, but the problem is I’ve noticed ashServ.exe is using CPU a lot during the Windows startup. Once it finishes, everything is fine.
No P2P started nor running at all… And not all files are chosen to be scanned. My avast! is properly tweaked and configured to fit my needs, and I never ever had those startup problems before.
May be it is good to do defrag of disk?
This will speed up disk reading and minimizing time for avast to scan files on start.
That’s always a good idea and you might try BootVis also to decrease those boot times(if you don’t already have it ofcourse) 
Mr.Babis, I am computer technician by profession and I do fix computers for living. Defragmenting of disks is so crucial, that there is no chance to forget to do it…
I repeat, once avast! is uninstalled, everything goes back to normal…
EDIT: Absolutely nothing is wrong with booting untill ashServ.exe kicks in… So, right now starting of Windows after logging in, takes around one minute… and it was always just few seconds…
Same here… 
I just want to add that i’ve been noticing a bigger system drag lately on my machine , with avast! enabled, my multiplayer gaming suffers sudden drops in framerates from time to time however with avast! completely disabled everything is fine.And everything worked OK before with avast! enabled, i haven’t been changing anything on my machine so there’s something weird going on i’m positive cause the ashServ.exe is eating more CPU than it used to … ??? Also like Sasha said the boot time is now around 1 minute and before it was under 45 seconds i’m sure…
Cheers
Mikey
I experienced a similar problem in that my boot time increased and I identified the problem as my very nosey firewall sticking its nose into hundreds of files, something of the order of 450-500 file accesses. Now this also started suddenly and I can’t remember if it was after an avast program update or a firewall update.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=14062.0
The upshot is I disabled the firewall totally on boot and start it with a batch file after boot. This works fine for me as I’m on dial-up and not connected to the internet shortly after boot as with broadband users.
So you might want to disable programs one at a time to see if you can find one that reduces the avast ashServ.exe activity, it isn’t scanning unless there is file activity, a program opening, reading files, etc. so find what program is doing this and decide if it needs to run on boot.
I totally understand you David, but this is what I have inside my startup items… and they were always there… nothing more nothing less…
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/1548/untitled15ue.jpg
The only thing to check now it Kerio… both, Miha (darth.mikey) and I, are using Kerio, so it could be that… maybe… I’ll check…
Mikey just asked me to post this instead of him… it’s quite late in Slovenia and he went to bed…
his startup items list:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9310/untitled19tu.jpg
And this is a quote from his PM to me where he asked me to do this as a proof:
And also here's my startup list you can post it in that thread cause i'm going to bed REALLY...... Oh and also tell DavidR that my avast standard shield scanned list is 200-230 in case he wants to know but that Kerio may be to blame i agree research it like you said....hehe ;)
I have to agree with the rest of the folks who’ve experience an increase in system resources and a severe slowdown in system
startup.
ashServ.exe is one culprit and Microsoft AntiSpyware is the other program that’s causing delays.
Avast’s ability do do a good job at protecting my system and do it without degrading my system was my main reason for
selecting it in the first place. Hopefully, this efficiency can be restored.
I give up on it… It’s a resource hog all the time, detects the same as the others and worse, more false positives.
Which on-access (resident) anti spyware are you using?
Absolutely nothing except SpywareBlaster which is best of the best IMHO. Never ever had any problems with it… such a wonderful product. Besides that I have Ad-Aware and Spybot - Search and Destroy only. Nothing else… and system is clean and running great. Ad-Aware never finds anything, second opinion I get from Spybot and sometimes I visit TrenMicro’s Housecall where I also run some spyware tests… nothing, nothing… SpwareBlaster does it’s job perfectly… and as far as I know, it doesn’t interfere with avast! in any way…
It’s not enough to me Sasha… very disapointing on blocking new spyware detections… even updating it almots just in time, spyware blaster is not as good as it seems it was.
Anyway, after installing it (few months ago) nothing goes through… Ad-aware, Spybot, not Bazooka can find anything any more. It does it’s job.
However, this is not a spyware/adware issue, we are talking about ashServ.exe and it’s excesive CPU usage… As I mentioned before, once avast! is uninstalled, Windows starting time immediatelly goes back to normal. I tried it two times… always the same story.
Tech you’re so right about MS Anti Spyware it is a huge resource hog, i gave up on it months ago… :
I’m only using Ad-Aware for my resident anti-spyware protection along with SpywareBlaster and Spybot(only the SDhelper without TeaTimer)…
Cheers
Mikey
Same goes for me guys(i just tried it out a couple minutes ago)… :