Using Windows xp, Avast 4.8 home Dell Inspiron 6000
CPU keeps running at 30 - 40% and will not settle dowm. My software is running slowly. A full scan shows no virus issue. Any ideas why CPU won’t settle down to 5-10%?
Steve
Have (or did) you another Anti-Virus installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
What other security software do you have installed ?
When the CPU activity is high, is the avast ‘a’ icon rotating ?
What sensitivity do you have the Standard Shield set to, Normal is the default ?
When does this happen and what are you doing ?
What process in the Task Manager is using this CPU% ?
Does there happen to be something running in the background, search indexing, P2P application, etc.
Have (or did) you another Anti-Virus installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ? No
What other security software do you have installed ? None
When the CPU activity is high, is the avast ‘a’ icon rotating ? Yes
What sensitivity do you have the Standard Shield set to, Normal is the default ? High
When does this happen and what are you doing ? Started recently Happens even if I shut down all other programs.
What process in the Task Manager is using this CPU% ? No items in task Manager
Does there happen to be something running in the background, search indexing, P2P application, etc. Not aware of any. As I said I noticed the computer slowing down a couple of days ago and scanned today (no virus found). Then checked CPU activity and found the relatively high numbers.)
Does that information help?
[font=Segoe UI] Hi Steven41 and welcome to the forums,
In times when CPU usage is high, would you please open Task Manager > Processes tab and click CPU column twice and tell us what are the top five CPU using programs.
Steven41,
What process in the Task Manager is using this CPU% ? [b]No items in task Manager[/b]
How do you know your CPU keeps running at 30 - 40% and will not settle down???
Task Manager will show % of CPU being used by processes.
Right click on taskbar> select Task Manager> click on Processes tab
- the major cause is setting the Standard Shield sensitivity to High, that will effectively scan every file that is accessed (even those not considered an immediate risk), so I’m not too surprised you see an increased CPU.
I have had avast for over five and a half years with the Standard Shield on the default Normal sensitivity and that really is sufficient, certainly for me; this provides the best balance between performance and protection.
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there should be something in the Task Manager, check as rdmaloyjr suggested and I would say that ashServ.exe would be using most of that CPU% since you have set the sensitivity to High.
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OK I will rephrase the question, what were you doing when you noticed the computer slowing down ?
If you check the CPU whilst scanning the CPU will be high as it will be working hard.
Image Name User name CPU Mem Usage
System Idle process SYSTEM ~60 28k
ashServe.exe SYSTEM ~20 30,988k
crss.exe SYSTEM ~ 9 ~5,616k
WINWORD.EXE Steve ~ 5 varies
jfCacheMgr.exe Steve ~ 3 ~13,000k
The security level has been at high since I started using Avast - 2006 - and I had not noticed any problem.
The numbers I just posted were after letting the computer sit for a few minutes with no keyboard activity.
The slowness is a general one: acccessing the web, checking email, even using Word or Excel. Usually the CPU is under 10% when idle (at least that is what I remember when I have checked it previously).
What is system idle process? It seems to be greabbing a lot of the CPU.
So in this instance ashServ.exe is only using 20%
The other processes, crss,exe, winword.exe and jfCacheMgr (what is this ?) are using the other in use CPU% and these would be accessing files, etc and causing avast to scan those files.
So I suggest you set the Standard Shield back to the default setting Normal, and see what improvement that brings.
I have previously when I got this new system did a short trial with the Standard Shield set to High, with my system specs, I didn’t see any noticeable impact on system performance. So your issue might also be exaggerated if your system specifications aren’t particularly fast.
What is your system CPU and RAM ?
System Idle Process is the amount of CPU% not in use, e.g. ‘Idle’
The system uses a Pentium M chip at 1.8ghz with 1 g of ram This configuration has not changed, so I do not feel it is the cause of the problem.
The hard drive was almost full at 93%. I have reduced data so I am now at 87% used (The price of being a new grandfather with too many photos). I am trying to get down below 85% to do a defrag. The problem started a few days ago and does not correlate to the hard drive overload issue which goes back over a month.
I do not know what jfCacheMgr is.
I will try reducing the security level and report back, but still wonder what caused the slow down change this week.
Have adjusted from HIGH to STANDARD.
CPU useage is floating around 10%
System Idle Process is now around 90
So the suggestion seems to work. Thank you very much. I will now watch performance during the rest of the day to see how the computer behaves.
I am still in a quandry as to what happened a few days ago to create the problem.
I do not remember changing the security level.
Thanks again
S
You’re welcome.
Your system spec pretty much matches my old system and I had no reall issues with that, then again I didn’t set the standard shield to High.
See http://www.systemlookup.com/search.php?type=filename&client=malwaresearch-ff&search=jfcachemgr.exe as this file isn’t a system file and since you don’t know about it, should it necessarily need to run on boot. Check the information there and see if that jogs your memory as to what it is about.
I too have no idea how the sensitivity has been changed, but it is only able to be changed by manual adjustment as the Default setting Normal is the only automated level. Does anyone have access to the computer or perhaps you were just checking the settings and inadvertently changed it. That is the only reason I can think of for it to happen all of a sudden when previously things were fine.
D
I have been searching the mystery file on the web. Looks like it might be suspicious, but it is not clear.
Computer is running better. I will continue to monitor performance.
I am the only one who uses this notebook.
I will continue to ask around about jfcachemgr and see what I can find.
Thanks for all your assistance. This was my first time on the forum and am very pleased with the response.
Cheers.
S
Well that link mentions it is related to PIPI Player, does that not ring any bells. On a google search I did it also mentions VOD (Video On Demand) and it is located in two locations:
%ProgramFiles%\pipi\jfcachemgr.exe
%ProgramFiles%\ppfilm\jfcachemgr.exe
So where is yours located ?
Sherlock Holmes would be proud.
In 2006 we were living in Shanghai. One of my employees hooked me up with a movie on demand software.
It does not show up in my add/remove program folder, but does show up when I do a file search. The mystery file is in there.
I am unable to delete any of the files. That is now a new issue. Hmmmm.
Since they have been on board for years I do not think they were the culprit of the slow down, but at least we know the origin of the file.
Time to take off my Holmes hat and share a pipe with Dr Watson
Maybe posting a HijackThis scan results will help.
I wasn’t indicating that it was the cause of the CPU issue, rather that it was an application which you didn’t really know about (so presumably don’t use) is running on you system.
Some of these things get installed as a part of another program that supposedly requires it, so the detective work may not yet be over.
It is more than likely a startup item, so using the Windows Start, Run and type msconfig and click OK, click on the Startup tab and check for an entry for this file (jfcachemgr.exe) or program (the movie on demand), disable it and reboot. If it is essential something or other will have a whinge about it being missing, etc.
Deletion is never a good first step, you have none left, without full investigation, so first you need to stop the process in task manager (why you couldn’t delete most likely as it is running). Having done that it is possible to rename the file to something like jfcachemgrOLD.exe,etc.