HELP! 100% cpu usage...

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

???After having installed avast, I find that cpu often maintains 100% usage when I plug in my mobile hard disk. I mean, when I explore my mobile hard disk, the process ashServ.exe takes up 100% cpu… After shuting Standard Shield of avast, the problem was solved. Could you offer me some suggestions? Can I not employ the Standard Shield function just because of this problem? Thank you very much~

2

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

ashServ.exe 100% CPU

  • Vlk, always says that the guidelines for solving of the problem “ashServ.exe using too much CPU” has always been the same:
  1. Check if the avast tray icon is spinning (while CPU usage is high)
  2. If it is, click it (wait for the dialogue box to open), and check which file is being scanned (the Last Scanned field); the Scanned Count value should be increasing (spinning icon means a scan is in progress)
  3. Find out which of the providers is scanning the file (click “Details” button and check out the Last Scanned value for each of the providers). The most common providers that may cause this are Standard Shield, P2P Shield and IM Shield.
3

Hello,

Recently had the same experience. So i clicked around and saw the standard shield doing overtime.

So, i right-clicked the avast spinning wheel and started avast! Antivirus. Under tasks i changed the properties of the Explorer extension task to a little less rigid level (but still recomended). From this moment on i could even click the ubuntu ISO-file without having to wait for half an hour to get my system back. Should have read the help file earlier i think. My ancient system shows wrong choices immediately.

Maybe this can help.

AMD Athlon 1 ghz, 512 MB, Avast Pro 4.8.1201, CFP 3.0.24.368, CMF 2.0.4.20, XP-Pro SP3

4

I really don’t know what you are trying to achieve with the Explorer extension as unless you have initiated a context menu scan it would have zero impact. I also don’t know how you managed to change it to a less rigid level as you can’t change the sensitivity of the ashquick.exe (the context menu scanner) scan.

Did you check the three steps and if so what was the CPU% of the one taking the lions share.

I suspect that you have the Standard Shield set to High as I cant see why it would start scanning when you explore your mobile HDD, it should only scan files that you open, simply browsing in the HDD shouldn’t do that, it doesn’t on mine and mine is set to Normal (the default) sensitivity in the Standard Shield.

5

Hello DavidR,

Thank you for your reply. I did follow the three steps program to find out that the standard shield was scanning ans scanning and …, although it was very difficult to do because my system seemed to be frozen. When i could take a look in process explorer i saw that ashServ.exe took a minimum of 75% of the CPU-time.

At your advice i readjusted the standard shield settings and everything seems to work fine.

Leoloek

6

You’re welcome.

The avast default settings give the best balance between protection and performance, especially if you have a system that is a little under powered.