avast PROVEN to be the culprit of my BSOD's?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

So it took having to go to Geeks to Go to get my Mini Dumps analyzed since getting them analyzed by avast personnel didn’t go anywhere.

As requested by the Tech at Geeks to Go, I sent over 4 Mini Dumps.
As per the Tech’s analysis of my computer’s 4 Mini Dumps, his conclusion was that avast is the cause of my computer’s BSODs.
I have attached a Screen Cap of that Tech’s analysis of my 4 Mini Dumps.

I sure HOPE that avast can fix this problem.
I sure don’t want to have to switch to another Anti-Virus as avast has served me very well since 2008. I’ve been very satisfied with it.

But, as of the last 7 weeks or so, the random reboots and BSODs have gotten progressively worse. They used to be few and far in between at first. Now they are quickly picking up pace to MULTIPLE reboots and BSODs per DAY!

So, can any Evangelist here with the right clout get someone from avast to look into this problem for me?
I sure didn’t have any luck.
It’s probably something recently incorporated into avast that isn’t playing well with my Windows VISTA.

avast is of course welcome to explain why the problem is NOT avast.
I’m only going by what I was told the Geeks to Go Mini Dumps analysis concluded.

2

Classic overheat or BAD CAPS symptoms.

Random reboots and BSOD’s often occur more often than not with older machines when:

[ol]- Routine maintenance such as using Canned Air and replacing the cpu paste was never done.

  • BSOD’s are known to cause data corruption when multiple events such as the above occur due to repeated heat stress. Ergo, a program such as avast! can be adversely affected (corrupted) by a sudden stop and multiple forced shutdowns of a system as it is a program that runs all the time on a system, unlike, say, MS Word.[/ol]

Signs of heat stress: Fans run louder than they used to, and for longer periods of time. In the worst case, they run at full speed almost all of the time, and then the unit either BSOD’s or spontaneously reboots. If a laptop, use canned air in short bursts only, to clear the vents of dust. If a desktop, open the case, take outdoors, and blow all dust out.

If the cpu paste has never been redone since new, now is the time to clean off all old, dried paste and apply fresh compound to the cpu and re-fasten the heat sink. If a 2008 unit, it’s been five years of use since this required three year maintenance has been done. Canned air should be used every six months or so. Proper maintenance will extend the life of a system by a factor of 1.5x or more.

BAD CAPS can be an issue in older machines. If you see any leaking, swollen tops, anything less than perfect and immaculate condition, you’ve got Bad Capacitors. The key here is that they must be in perfect condition.

Once you rule out a hardware overheat issue or BAD CAPS, then you can focus on either repairing your avast! installation or do a clean install. Not doing the above will mean that you can repair/clean install all you want, but a system will continue to have BSOD’s and spontaneously reboot until the overheat issue is fixed and addressed first. Avast! will never run as it should if this important maintenance work is not done.

In other words, all hardware must be in serviceable to excellent condition before one looks to software corruption as a possible issue.

For example, PSU’s have been known to fail gradually in continuous rated power output over time. In fact, it’s [a] normal occurrence and service techs make allowances for them to do so when specifying a replacement PSU.

[EDIT:]

3

A simple test, uninstall Avast for a period. Do the BSOD cease or continue with a different file involved

4

Unlike my famous / infamous HP Pavilion dinosaur computer that was a million years old, this computer is I believe only like 3 years old.

As to the possibility of an overheating issue? Nnnnggg, I don’t really think that would be the case because for example, some of the reboots and BSODs happen upon the very 1st Boot Up of the day after having been off all night.

As to the possibility of avast being corrupt and just needing a Repair or Reinstall? That too pretty much got eliminated this past weekend as the probable cause. I HAD originally thought that had a high probability of being the cause. But, just barely this past Sunday I upgraded from 8.0.1489 to 8.0.1497.

The good news was that with that upgrade, I WAS able to complete an entire avast manual full scan without any BSODs … unlike the BSODs that 2 consecutive manual scan attempts with 8.0.1489 gave me.

The bad news was that the random reboots & BSODs continued after the fresh, CLEAN install of 8.0.1497. Not only that, but within the last 2 days, the reboots & BSODs have noticeably increased. I believe I got 3 BSODs yesterday alone.

5

Uninstall Avast for a 24 hour period, use MSES in the interim and see if the BSOD cease

6

Oh, I already thought of that idea since last night, Essexboy.
Last night before going to bed, I uninstalled avast.
So yeah, I’m operating without an Anti-Virus right now.

Saturday or Sunday I’ll be going to my sister’s house. I’ll download Avira and AVG and their bulk Virus Definitions and install one just in case I never get word back, let alone help from avast … pk, which is looking like that’ll be the case.

I was thinking that IF overheating was really the case, the culprit process for the cause of the BSODs would have varied more randomly instead of it pretty much solidly pointing towards avast.

And why did 2 avast manual full scans solidly give me BSODs very early in the scans when SAS and MBAM had no trouble running in their entirety without incident?

Anyway, at the rate the random reboots & BSODs were appearing the last couple of days … between today and the weekend I should be able to determine whether they have disappeared or not with the removal of avast.

7

How many minidumps do you have ?

8

I have 6 Mini Dumps all zipped up, Essexboy.
If YOU want a crack at them, let me know.
Hopefully I can just attach them or PM them to you.
Since I don’t have High Speed Internet, I don’t care to try sending them anywhere via that Windows Explorer / FTP route again. I would never be able to confirm whether the transmission was in progress … and if and when it completed successfully.

So yeah, let me know if you want them.
Otherwise, I’m ready to stop wasting time and up and PM VLK.

9

So far today my computer has behaved … sans avast or any Anti-Virus.
No reboots and no BSODs.
And it’s been on all day.

10

OK next would be to try another AV for a 24 hour period and see if that works OK

Did you do a clean install of Avast ?

11

Yeah, I always perform clean installs of avast.
I always uninstall avast in Safe Mode with the avast Uninstall Utility.
Then I check for remnants with the Registry Cleaning function of CCleaner, Glary Utilities and JetClean.

I never use GUI installation option.

Either today or tomorrow I’ll go download Avira and AVG at my sister’s house and install and try out one of them to see how my computer behaves.

So far this morning my computer is working fine without avast or any Anti-Virus.

12

Be careful of Avira as it installs Ask toolbar, and if you remove it Avira is crippled
With AVG I have seen some instances where webcake was also downloaded

13

Thanks for the heads up, Essexboy.
It’s not something I want to do. I don’t want to have to switch away from avast.
But, if one of those Anti-Viruses does work on my computer without any random reboots & BSODs and avast doesn’t address my issue, I’d have no choice but to use one of the Anti-Viruses that worked.