come again ?
come again ?This is from an earlier post in this discussion:
One of the disk drives was running in PIO mode in stead of in DMA mode. This may happen over time when there have been errors on the disk. Resetting the values in the registry and rebooting cured this problem.This I found out by running Process Explorer.So, disks running in PIO mode will typically show high occurrence of hardware interrupts. Avast makes it even worse, probably also because of some disk activity while scanning.
Please read pages 1 and 2 of this discussion. It’s all there.
ive already read the entire thread… just didnt understand the question…
and ive already checked… no pio here …
I’m getting a high CPU usage as well.
It’s not a recent update problem. I’m using 4.6.691, a build that’s worked perfectly up until recently, now it’s coming up with the same problem.
Shutting down all scans does nothing (ie. “Stop On-access Protection”) ashServ.exe still hogs processor usage, is stuck on “High” priority, and refuses to let me change it’s priority. The only way to fix it, besides restarting the computer, is killing the process.
My hard drives are also set at DMA, not PIO, before anyone asks. Plain, simple IDE drives, none of this fancy SATA stuff LOL.
Any ideas so far?
'Shady
and ive already checked.. no pio here ..
My hard drives are also set at DMA, not PIO, before anyone asks. Plain, simple IDE drives, none of this fancy SATA stuff LOL.Apparently nobody wants to run Process Explorer to look at the hardware interrupt process time.
i ran it the first time i read your post…
I’m getting the same error but with 43% CPU Spikes. If i kill the process my comp is back to normal again. I use to get the same problem awhile ago, not all the time though, it randomly happens. I’ve just recently upgraded my comp and reformatted the old harddrive and it was working normal for the first week or so, then started getting the CPU Spikes back. I have been using Avast! for about 2years now and only first started noticing this problem late last year.
The last scanned file at the moment is a irc log file.
Im currently only using windows firewall. Running Windows XP Media Center sp2. The only other programs iv installed since the reformat on this computer is Spybot - Search and Destroy and Adaware, not sure if they have any problems with avast!.
???
EDIT
Seem to have found a solution for my comp, it seems ashServ.exe only spikes the CPU when its scanning a relatively large .log file, I noticed someone earlier mentioning how they changed their .log file name, instead i’ve moved all my irc log files onto an external hdd and there doesnt seem to be anymore problems for now. Hope this helps. 
Welcome to the forums, Kyosuke. 
Thank you for posting and editing in a solution to your problem. Hopefully, this will help some of the others with this similar problem.
I have used Ad-Aware & SpyBot for years without either one having a conflict and in the now more 2 years of Avast use, no conflict at all.
Please come back often, learn more, and maybe help others.
Thanks ;D Always glad to help out. Hopefully in future updates avast! can be tweaked to scan these files without anymore issues (assuming that it just isnt my comp) 
I too had problems with logs causing high cpu useage via ashserv. As a result of the advice in the thread I have curred the problem.
I suggest that a counter be put into avast and that if the same file is continuously being scanned a popup asks if the user wants to put this automatically in an exclusion list.
Robin
Welcome to the forums, robbyn.
We are glad that you were able to find help here for your problem.
If you have not already done so, you might want to post your suggestion in this thread of the forums …
New features for the next major avast! release [WISHLIST] http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=12640.405
Please come back often, learn more, and maybe help others.
I’m also having issues with P2P Shield when running emule, bittorent or uTorrent.
I terminated P2P Shield and now my CPU is back to normal and my downloads are also more steady 
I haven’t seen this bug before so I would think it is due a relatively recent update.
Note: I’m on XP latest SP and updates, all disks are UDMA and SATA running full speed. There is no particularly high interupts reported by Process Explorer.
Avast folks, can you update P2P Shield and have it working correctly!!! I hate having P2P shield off ;-(
Why are you calling it bug?
Are you sure you’re not downloading infected items?
Hello to all.
I would like to report an occurence of ashserv.exe having spikes of high usage when using the Mozilla email client.
On a clean WinXP system (AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 1GB RAM) with Mozilla Thunderbird or Seamonkey Project e-mail client, with junk mail filters turned on or off, every Avast scanning operation runs fine, doesn’t hog the system abnormally. But after an Avast upgrade some months ago, I noticed that junk mail filtering and normal opening of email messages got considerably slower, invoking a 1-3 second pause before loading the body of the message (even text with no images). Deleting and sorting messages also got less responsive. The task manager showed ashserv.exe having short spikes of 90-100% CPU usage when opening a message in the e-mail client.
After reading this thread, I turned the sensitivity of the standard shield from High to Normal and now, things seem to run fine - emails load almost immediately. I’ll post an update if this proves wrong. What interests me is, what have I “lost” in scanning effectiveness with this change of settings and if there is another way of doing it better.
Thanks!
See this post - you may well have the same issue:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=23424.msg194826#msg194826
Indeed. I have noticed with the On-access scanner, that Avast scans the whole Thunderbird/Seamonkey mailbox file, but I never thought that with the High sensitivity setting, it unpacks it in its whole for EVERY single message I view. How my Avast settings got to High, I can’t say. :), but Normal, as chocholo reports in the thread above, is just fine, High is reserved for suspicious infections.
I knew about the “deleting” of emails, but I forgot to compact the mailboxes regulary. Thanks for the reminder, alanrf.
My problems with Avast/Thunderbird-Seamonkey have been resolved. -.-
Hi There
I too have used Avast since I was born, and have just started getting 80-90% CPU with ashserv and tracked down to the p2p shield whilst downloading with uTorrent. Have tried your suggestions with no luck! What else can I do?
Are you using the last avast version?
uTorrent was already removed of the ‘mail application’ scanned by Internet Mail provider and due to high CPU usages…
So, something is strange in your computer…
Yes everything is up to date. The file resume.dat may have been the one it was getting stuck on…I think… ???
I have the same problem. I’m using the last version of Avast and uTorrent.
Sometimes my CPU usage goes to 100% and everything stops.
I’m reading the topics about this issue, but couldn’t find any solution until now.
I like both programs, they’re lightweight for my old computer, and don’t want to change any of them.
But if this continues…