This has happened before. The VRDB generator was taking several days to do its job, and then it became uncontrollable. It became unresponsive to commands and was running constantly. I did an online repair of avast, then the i-ball in systray disappeared after awhile. It has not merged with the a-ball icon. I suppose things may return to normal when I restart my computer, but I have other applications running that I don’t want to stop.

Click right mouse button in avast, and select to separete Avast-VRDB.

It’s not really a good idea to leave your computer on all the time, you can burn the parts out more quickly or cause it to overheat if you do that. Better to switch it off by going to the Start-Shutdown procedure then switching off the mains socket and removing the plugs, when you’re not using it. And with certain operating systems such as Windows ME you can’t have it on all the time anyhow because Windows ME runs out of resources. Maybe that’s part of what’s happening.

What are your computer’s specs in terms of hard drive size, RAM, CPU speed and chip type (i.e. is it an intel pentium or not) please plus operating system.

That wasn’t possible. There was no mention of VRDB when rightclicking the a-ball in systray. The i-ball simply disappeared and there was no way to get it back.

However after doing an online repair then restarting my computer things have returned to normal.

I started computing on a handheld Texas Instruments programmable calculator circa 1979. That was before PC’s became available. When PC’s appeared, I purchased a Commodore 64 circa 1981, then a Commodore 128 a few years later. I stayed with Commodores til they went out of business, and beyond. I started using IBM-compatibles circa 1997, and began on an IBM Amiga. Thereafter it was a HP Pavilion, and now a Compaq Presario. In all that time (26 years), I have ALWAYS kept my computers running full blast, near 100% processor usage, almost 24 hours per day, almost 365.25 days per year. That has never caused a problem insofar as I’m aware. So I don’t think your advice is valid in that regard.

I’m running Windows XP Home (SP2) which is not supposed to have the resource limits that plagued Windows 95/98/Me. Indeed I’ve never noticed any. My box has an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ at 2.0GHz, 1 GB DDR 2100 SDRAM, two hard drives (120GB & 160GB), S3 Graphics ProsavageDDR display adapter, VIA VT8375 ProSavageDDR KM266 chipset, FIC AM35 motherboard. It all runs pretty cool except I notice the 160GB Maxtor hard drive (which I just put in recently) is running at about 50 degrees Centigrade. I don’t know if that’s too hot - haven’t researched it yet.

JB

I did a search online for you and found this article which has an explanation down at the bottom about why you should shut down your computer regularly.

There’s also the risk if you leave it on all the time of a fire, or of someone or something accessing it without your knowledge when you’re not around to keep an eye on it - even if you have a firewall that risk is there and you need to be around to put a stop to any inimical activity. And you’re using up a lot of electricity, you might find a reduction in your electricity bill if you switch it off overnight.

I’d suggest try switching it off at the end of the day using the Start-Shutdown procedure, and see if that calms the VRDB generator down. It seems to be taking an awful lot of time to do its job, mine doesn’t take anything like that and I have 300,000-400,000 files on my system which is also one of the newer computers with a large hard drive.

http://www.naplestech.com/pages/maintenance.htm

In any case, what applications are you needing to run 24 hours a day 365 days a year? And I can’t think of anything which would use up 100% of a CPU:) most programs need some resources free to run.

Thanks for the information about shutting down the computer, etc., but I don’t agree with it. I will not be saddled by such unsubstantiatied rumors, and will continue as I have for the last 26 years of computing.

Well, I’ve had different interests over the years, some of which require the computer to run 100% full-blast, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. I don’t claim that’s normal for home computerists. I guess it’s not, but it’s how I use a computer, and will probably continue in that vein. Some of my earlier work was statistical, and involved calculating the mathematically best way to play the game of blackjack using different card counting methods. You could keep a computer running forever on such things. ;D More recently I have been using ChessBase software from Germany which ultimately seeks to solve the game of chess completely with titles such as Fritz, Shredder, Junior, Hiarcs, Tiger, etc. That software uses 99%+ of processor time and almost all of available memory when it is running, and I keep it running almost 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Any other applications on my computer must run in that environment, or not at all. It works generally OK with Windows XP unless an application also wants/needs to monopolize the processor and memory, so sometimes I must assign higher/lower priorities to the processes involved.

FYI, here’s the trick involved. Suppose you want to run Internet Explorer (or any application) at abovenormal priority. Copy a shortcut somewhere and modify the properties to read as follows:
Target: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c start /abovenormal C:\Progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.exe
Start in: C:\WINDOWS\system32

You can get a list of the different switches involved by the usual “/?” method in a command window.

So avast, and all other software, must multitask in this environment on my computer. It looks like the avast icons in systray don’t behave 100% properly in that case. In particular the “i” icon and the VRDB operation misbehaves. It took 4 days running full-time to complete the VRDB on my computer. I don’t know if that’s something the avast authors can fix, or not. In any case I’ve set it to run only every 3 months, rather than the default 3 weeks, which I can probably live with.
JB

For many years the accepted thought was that leaving your computer running was better for your computer as the temperature range was more stable than constantly switching off your computer. The most stressful time for components is start-up.

For many years I left my system on 24/7 with no harmful effects, I didn’t even allowing the system to go into standby and spin down the HDDs. The only time I shut down were for system related problems in win95, win98 and win98se.

Components have improved, but the most stressful time is still start-up. Since switching to XP Pro, I leave my system on all day shutting down at night (doing my bit for the environment, not because it is best to do so).

Just my 2p worth.

Edit: Re VRDB, I don’t allow mine to run automatically, but schedule it into my regular maintenance tasks, so that when it is being run at a time with little else running. This takes about 5 minutes for about 6GB of data (obviously not all of that isn’t required for VRDB scan), the first time it is run will obviously be much longer.