PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi,

My pc has been painfully slow now for some time1,i have windows xp home sp3 with avast 6.0.1289 installed,most other services on bootup have bee ndisabled in msconfig and i only have comodo and avast in the taskbar bottom loading up.
I belive maybe it is avast,as when the screen bootup screen appears the desktop icons appear ok,but everything else seems to hang e.g cannot open msn messenger or mozilla firefox then avast update green box appears telling me avast is now updated and then shortly afterwards my pc is usable,but beforehand it is virtually useless,also it takes ages to open add/remove programs and i mean ages 2-3 mins,advice please i love avast,would not change it for ANYTHING!

SOUTHERN MAN

PS have looked on the forum,uninstall/reinstall or revert back older avast version ,patches?

2

When did it start and what changed (applications/updates wise) around then ?

Avast 6.0.1289 has been out for some time (2011-09-07, over two months) and presumably the update to that version pre-dates this problem ?

3

I had similiar or same behavior[url=http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=88536.0] here [/url}

4

Thanks for quick reply davidr,i reckon the problem has been with me for about 2-3 or months maybe longer,as i seem to remember add-remove programs taking forever to open up from control panel which does open up ok,also main bootup time is painfully slow that has been happening for a long time more than 2-3 months from memory sorry not to be more concise.
I did install application FREE COMODO FIREWALL previously(april time 2011?) only the firewall,before that i had OUTPOST FREE?,I HAVE MALWAREBYTES scanner only and SUPERANTISPYWARE scanner only,i use mozilla firefox mainly,regulary use crap cleaner,winutilities,glary utilities to clean pc on demand,defraggler demand thats it really,it definenetly hangs with avast though as the last icon in taskbar is avast that brings up avast has been updated message green box.
I think previously you advised to seta delay time for avast to update on bootup to say 240 seconds or more,would this help again or maybe re-install avast,waht do you advise.

thanks

southern man

5

Davidr update,sorry should of mentioened that when desktop screen bootsup if i go into task manager ctrl/alt/del avastsvc.exe uses a very high %cpu resources for avast update is this normal is probabaly why it basically locks up the pc until it updates itself?

southern man

6

Maybe you can update your PROFILE to indicate XP Home SP3

How much RAM does the system have ???

7

OK, the RAM question is very valid and also what CPU do you have, as from my signature I don’t have any noticeable impact on boot. Though I have a reasonable CPU and qty of RAM for XP Pro.

I don’t know why you would have removed that delayed update check, if it had resolved a problem in the past, unless you did a clean install of avast since and that replaces the avast5.ini file with the changes.

As to if you should replace it, that would have been the first thing that I did if previously it worked.

8

Yes i did re-install avast thinking about!,it thanks for the reminder and yes i did not re set delay time in avast bootup ini,thanks i’ll give it a try and get back to you.
Can you remind me how to get to the ini of avast to set delay,i think i set it to 360 seconds.

southern man

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Davidr i have found how to get into avast ini,but the line in notepad it rea

it reads…

AssumeAlwaysConnected=0 but there is NO line showing (alwaysConnectedWaitSeconds) could this be the problem,what do you suggest?

southern man

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I have gone into avast ini and found in the notepad line entry:

AssumeAlwaysConnected=0

But NO listing entry of… AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds.

Maybe this is the problem?

I have updatePeriod set to 240 seconds.

southern man

ps sorry previous messed up half post!

11

Changing those values may help, if the new values are adequate for your system.

In any case, I have the impression (from your posts) that your system is “slow” not only at boot time. If this impression is correct, then changing those values may help only partially.

JFYI, I don’t use so many “cleaners” as you mentioned, and I don’t have so many problems either. Sometimes a tool that is supposed to help is actually making things worse. Just to mention one potential example, some of those tools you mentioned are able to delete the prefetch cache of Windows, but deleting it is not going to make your system boot up faster. In fact, the opposite will happen.

How much free space do you have in your HDD (specially, in the first partition)?

Do you have other tools running on start up?

12

  • In avast6 you need to edit (using notepad) avast5.ini the [InetWD] section of the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avast Software\Avast\avast5.ini (XP file location).

  • Broadband connections, add this line:
    AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120 and
    AssumeAlwaysConnected=1 if not present (or edit AssumeAlwaysConnected=0 to AssumeAlwaysConnected=1)

[InetWD] AssumeAlwaysConnected=1 AlwaysConnectedWaitSeconds=120
When complete save the changes, avast's self-defence module will ask for confirmation, etc. answer Yes.

The figure is seconds and the above equates to two minutes, you could try that and adjust upwards if required, 180, 240, 360,etc.

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Thanks davidr i have done as you recommended,all is ok now thanks!!

Also i have taken non board what ady4um has said regards deleting the prefech data in windows,have no other satrtup tools on bootup,i will set the cleaner NOT to delete prefech,appreciate your help and advice ADY4UM!.

As a matter interest ady4um i have 1.8ghz 32 bit amd 2600 BARTON processor,2GB ram,500GB HD,WITH 170 GB FREE HDD.

I think the problem lay in when previously i set avast ini to delay boot and delay update 240 & 360 seconds respectively,i uninstalled avast completely & tried avira av and did not like it and went back to avast and forgot that i had changed the ini settings,before i had a bad accident,so than you too all who helped me,grat helpful and friendly forum as always.

southern man

14

You’re welcome.

If you have the windows prefetch set on its highest setting, gather prefetch data on all programs (4 I think) and you delete that prefetch information periodically with ccleaner (or similar tool) then it takes a few boots to gather the data involved in the boot to help speed loading.

15

Thanks for the info on prefech,out of inteerst davidr how do you access that setting of 4 in prefech highest setting you mentioned,i haven’t got a clue?,anyway i had crap cleaner in advanced settings set to delete prefech old data,i suppose that has not helped matters,i have de-marked that option,cannot find this option in glary utilities?.

Cheers guys

southern man

ps…AVAST is the BEST!!

16

I changed mine by editing the registry in XP Pro, not really something that you should play with. You could google change prefetch settings XP and see what it turns up, I think that is how I found it first time.

The max isn’t actually 4 but 3 as the value starts at zero 0 = disabled, 1 = prefetch application files, 2 = prefetch only boot files (I have mine set on) and 3 = prefetch everything.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters EnablePrefetcher

More http://winxp-expert.blogspot.com/2010/12/change-settings-for-your-prefetch.html.

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I’d like to comment on a couple of things, not just for the current OP, but for other readers, so to be clear.

My comment on prefetch was just an example. There are several of those. Many so called “cleaners” are useful when you know what exactly is your goal. Running them just with the defaults is not a good idea. I know other users recommend them as a general cleaning method. I have enough experience with them in several different situations, and IMHO they are not “for general use” or “for general cleaning goals”.

If you want to “clean” something specific, great. Other than that, I would avoid using them as a frequent “cleaning method”.

Now, you said that you use CCleaner, WinUtilities, Glary Utilities and Defraggler. Some of their functions are overlapping between them. All of them may cause some undesired effects in certain situations, so all of them, at least in part, comply with what I just described: you should use them with a specific goal in mind and not as a general “as is” “cleaning” method.

About the free space in your HDD, what I meant is that, under Windows, a partition that has more than 70 to 80% of used space is going to show you delays (to say the least). Even if you have, say, 100GB of free space, if that is a partition of 500GB you would be still at 80% of used space, and Windows (re)acts “differently” under those circumstances.

Finally, you mentioned testing / trying out other security tools and coming back to Avast. You definitely should run the respective removal utilities of each and all versions of any previous security tool. They tend to leave remnants (after “uninstalling” them using “Add/Remove Programs”), and some of those can conflict with Avast (affecting performance too).

A partial list of removal utilities can be located at http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/. For better results, the removal utility should be ran under Windows Safe Mode.

18

Thanks for the useful tips and advice!

southern man

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You’re welcome.

20

Thanks for the thoughts which have helped me to mitigate what is probably the same problem with my XP Pro SP3 system. It’s been a bother for over 3 years. It is a relief to at last have an explanation and a mitigation for the difficulty. I think that I can now soldier on with XP for a while longer before having to submit to the illusion of security afforded by Windows 7 :frowning: