I’m new to this forum, and i just wanted some help.
The Ashserv process will frequently take up all of my processing power (happens about every 5 mins)
This leaves all my programs frozen until it is done, and it is really annoying.
I was wondering if anybody here could tell me what it is doing and if i can change it to make it stop happening.
by the way, im using the latest version of avast on an emachines comp with windows XP SP2
What version of avast are you using Home or Pro ?
What is the sensitivity of Standard Shield (default is Normal) ?
There must be some activity that causes avast to scan, try enabling ‘Show detailed info on performed action’ in standard shield that will show what files are being scanned.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/for-dwr/ShowDetailedAction.jpg
This is the scanning process, so taking CPU to release after scanning… for some reason, it’s taking too long in your case.
Better if you answer all David’s questions to help us to help you 
i am using home, and for some odd reason, all the providers were on high, so i changed them to normal and it still didnt help any,plus i enabled the show detailed info option, and it shows what its scanning when i open something, but it doesnt say anything when its taking my CPU
another thing i found is that in the avast log viewer in the error section it says something about a failed scan on my edonkey bit torrent temp files. this message appears about a few thousand times (not kidding)
so, after some analysis, i checked out the options on the customize button of the standard shield. and i found a blocked adresses list, i added the file path of this reccuring failing scan and i changed the scanner sensitivity to custom. it didnt work, so i open the control panel up again and it says standard shield is on high, not custom. i tried setting it to custom a dozen times, but it keeps going back to high. How can i get it to stay on custom?
This only helps if you indeed change any setting after that… or the slider will come back to the High/Normal position if the settings match the defaults for High/Normal sensitivity. So you’ll experience this:
considering that i added a location not to be scanned and i changed a few other things, and it still reverts to high…
This is not enough to change the level.
Scanning open/modified/changed files is needed…
Unless you change something that will increase or decrease the ‘overall’ security from the sensitivity you have, the level won’t change. Adding simple exclusions only has an effect on those URLs/files, etc. but not overall.
As Tech mentions you have to change something that will change how avast scans all files or a major sub-set, e.g. the main ones are in Scanner (Advanced) Tab, the image below.