My Testing results

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

In the last few weeks I have tested many AV’s, Avast being one of them. In a few other threads here in the forum I commented on the fact that Avast caused a slow shut down on my system, and it looks like others have the same issue. This issue of course was sorted out, and a work around was discovered, and a fix coming.

In all fairness to Avast I want to talk about my observations with the other AV’s. Avast is not the only AV to have this slow shut down issue. I demo’d the latest version of McAfee 2004, which also had this slow shut down trait. There was one other that also had this issue but I can’t recall the name.

Now, I also commented that with Avast installed, I notice alot more hard drive activety. Let me start from the begining. I built my own PC, and built for silence when selecting the fans. I have 13 fans in my system including the CPU fan, and graphics card fan. Even the graphics card fan I changed to an arctic cooler VGA silencer, completely silent on low speed. Anyway, before looking for a different AV, I had Norton. It was one of the first items I installed after a clean install of XP. Then I installed all my other software. When I desided to get rid of Norton, I decided to image back to a clean install of XP, and re-install my software. That way I could dodge the Norton uninstall nightmare. This time I waited to install my AV till the end. That way I could make an image of my system with everything except my AV. Then instead of trying to uninstall each one after trying it, I could image back to before I had the AV on my system, and then try the next one.

This is how I noticed the extra hard drive noise after installing Avast. Right up to before I install the AV on my system, it is super quiet. Because of the fans I use, I can hear every noise my hard drive makes. Well once again, in all fairness to Avast, other AV’s I tried also produce extra hard drive activety. Just for a test, I installed Norton 2004 15 day trial. It caused extra hard drive noise on my system. I mean sometimes even when my system is idle. AVG also caused this. I don’t think I noticed it before, because Norton was one of the first things I installed after my OS install, and the hard drive activety was just always there. But I sure noticed it when my AV was the last thing installed.

I guess my question is, what causes this? I have ghosted back and forth to before I install my AV, and my system becomes super quiet again going back to the image of before I install my AV. I can surf and open apps and hear hardly nothin. But when I add my AV, and not just Avasts, the extra hard drive noise instantly starts up. Some people claim that their hard drive activety light won’t even flicker when their system is idle. Mine is pretty close to that without my AV installed. Just wondering if anyone knows anything about this? Alot of people may not notice because their fans are louder than their hard drives. Any comments?

Thanks!

Douglas

2

Usually, harddisk-noises is being caused when the system has not enough ram.
Avast! is a tiny bit resource-hungry so could it be that you don’t have enough memory on your pc ?

Fast. ???

3

I have a gig of DDR 400 PC 3200 Corsair memory. With everything installed including Avast, my memory usage is at 25%. RAM is definately not the issue.

Douglas

4

It should be VRDB: for the first time, avast gains information of almost every file in your system and strores them to the database. If your computer keeps in idle time (no mouse no keyboard activites for the certain time: defined in avast.ini ???) it continues in the scanning & collecting; the process can be even activated from the screen saver; could be that problem you mentioned?

5

I have VRDB set up to go when the screen saver is on. That does explain why the hard drive activety light was flickering when my screen saver was on after the install of Avast.

But I am talking just more noise from the drive. Not really a bunch of flashing from the hard drive activety light. I still don’t quite understand this VRDB. It only runs every two weeks doesn’t it?

You know it might also just be a case of not having Avast on my system for very long. You know when you are first setting up your operating system and installing all your software. Its like everything needs to settle in, and get all configured.

Douglas

6

You are right, the VRBD (once created, which may take a while) is refreshed every 3 weeks, by default.

Well, it may be possible that avast! causes some additional hard drive activity (e.g. watching for changes in its ini-files that should take effect immediatelly, or by the MS Jet drivers it uses… though the first case should certainly be handled by the OS caching).

You can try the File Monitor - you will see what disk operations are performed when the computer should be “idle”.

7

Tipton, try switching to XML storage. The ODBC storage (used by default) is known to generate some periodic HDD activity (although, as Igor said, such things should be handled by the Windows cache manager).

Open the file \data\avast4.ini in Notepad, find the line that says

Database=ODBC

and change it to

Database=XML

Then restart all avast components (including the services) or reboot the machine for the changes to take effect.

Vlk

8

When I have the VRDB set to run during screen saver, is that why the hard drive light chugs away when the screen saver comes on? How long does the VRDB process take. Seems like it went on for like 5 minutes.

Douglas

9

Usually it takes a few hours to complete…

10

Well I am sure it wasn’t done yet then. Does it just pick up where it left off when the screen saver is active again?

Douglas

11

yes i think it does

12

I think you can probably assume it just carries on from wherever when it can – probably in pretty much the same manner that it seems to do in the computer-inactive update mode.

There’s a line in the VRDB “paragraph” in the ini which refers to last file – I’d guess that this is a reminder to itself as to where it needs to resume from.

13
There's a line in the VRDB "paragraph" in the ini which refers to last file -- I'd guess that this is a reminder to itself as to where it needs to resume from.

That’s correct. It’s called LastFile and is (not surprisingly) located in the [VRDB] section.