I’m thankful for the FREE home version of Avast. Not only is the price right, but it’s appears to be just as effective in hunting down and removing virus as Norton AntiVirus on my laptop. However, I could never recommend this program to my employer. Why ? Because, “time is money !”
When Avast anti-virus 4.5 is active on my desktop PIII-730 / Win-XP Pro / 256MB RAM Dell computer, Avast places such a drag on system performance that it almost becomes unbearable. (Like trying to run the Boston Marathon with a 25 pound ball-and-chain attached to each leg !) When I shut the Avast 4.5 off, the system runs at a nice speed.
Am I doing something wrong ? Is my setup incorrect ? Or have others also encountered a dramatic decrease in system performance running Avast on a similar PC ?
Hey AsheJoe,
It’s radicalb21. First let me welcome you to the forum. Then let me say that version 4.5 of AVAST isn’t available yet and won’t be until later this summer. The current version of AVAST is 4.1.418 . First off let me ask what your settings are? Next what programs do you have running at startup? What are your system resources? If you can provide a little more information that would be helpful.
Yea, your doing something wrong alright… Your running WindowsXP on a machine thats BARELY capable of running it properly, and you are trying to run modern products on a 10 year old box. Try building a new machine or something rather than complaining something is slow on a machine like that… Sheesh.
Now based on you saying 4.5 Avast is out… Putting that together with the fact your running a 10 year old machine, i’d gather your relatively unknowledgable about computers? If thats the case, then look at your processes running, and i’d imagine you’ll find dozens upon dozens of things running, hogging your machine, and causing Avast troubles.
Kobra is correct…256 MB of RAM is the minimum you would want to run XP pro. Then of course you have all your RAM hungry software apps added into the big picture. Not to mention a PIII is a dino. I would say it is upgrade time! I have a P4, and a gig of RAM, and I run XP Pro and many other software programs. Avast didn’t slow it down one bit.
I’m running fine with avast!. Matter of fact… my system is faster than most peoples systems I’ve seen with faster processors and more memory. This is due to unneeded background services running… and other processes that are not needed. If I were you I’d d/l Spybot S&D AND AdAware…do a scan with each… Then try to find out what services you have running and background processes that you don’t need…and disable them.
OH… and Spyware Blaster I have found helpful. You can do a search for these programs on google and d/l them.
Using avast!, SpyBot S&D, AdAware and Spyware Blaster…my computer is now clean every week of spyware and malware. Haven’t found any problems in months.
Well, first of all I’d suggest to answer all the questions radicalb21 posted.
I think the computer of the original poster is not that slow and avast! shouldn’t cause any bad slowdown; it is certainly running on much slower machines - but without additional info, it’s really hard to say anything more.
well im only running a AMD - K6™ 3D processer with 248 mb of RAM and i hardley notice the differencewhenits on or paused , the only time it ran slow was when the shield thing was set to high, try setting t to normal.
WOW, thank you one and all for such a wonderful response to my inquiry as to why this highly effective anti-virus program runs so slow on my machine. I sincerely thank every one of you.
In answer to the replies I recieved:
Yes, I did make a mistake in identifying my version of Avast. It IS version 4.1.418. The virus definition file is 0426-0. And the compilation date is 22.06.2004.
Yes, I agree that running Windows XP Pro on a PIII-730 is right at the very lowest end of computer power for running XP. On the other hand, (other than the slow performance when the antivirus software is active), I haven’t noticed any problems. The computer (so the Dell sticker says), was designed for Windows 2000 / Windows NT-4 / Windows 98. (By the way Kobra, the box was built in April of 2000, I bought it surplus from a local company for $50.00 last month.)
Yes too, to having Avast set on the most aggressive settings. I understand what you mean. Which ones can I safely turn off ?
The task bar is FULL of icons that plant themselves on the quick launch bar whether I want them there or not. Are you saying that Avast will run faster if I delete the majority of them ? OK, I can handle that. Of course, when I do a CTRL-ALT-DEL and look under the PROCESSES tab, there are 44 different processes running. Here again, which ones are safe to shut off to free up more of the 256MB of RAM ?
In terms of available resources, (right now), I’m showing 46.46MB of Available System Memory / 1.97 GB of Available Virtual Memory / 424.91 MB of Page File Space.
I fully agree about the SpyWare drags. I do have SpyBot’s latest version (1.3) installed and it is doing a fantastic job.
I hope that I have intelligently answered all the questions that were posted in response to my initial inquiry. Honestly, I’ve truly been impressed with Avast Anti-Virus. I just wish I could figure out why it appears to be slowing down my system so radically. I do notice a substantial speed difference with it turned off.
Joe Ashe, please come back and try to answer the open questions…
avast! is not a RAM and machine resources eater.
Well, I tested avast! into a 486 machine with Windows 95! Nothing bad… 8)
In response to what you said about spybot, i feel even though it is a good program in itself, it only has the ability to find about 14000 spywares i belive, i am using webroot spyware scanner and it seems to have a wider collection avalible to detect, you can get the free version here > http://www.webroot.com/wb/downloads/index.php <,it is called Spy Sweeper and the free version finds about 25000 spyware freats, however the full version does seem to find more but you have to pay for that, how much more spyware definitions the full version finds i am not sure of becuase i only use the free version.
Well i hope this helps in someway to speed your computer up.
try opening your add/remove programs in your control panel and make sure you don’t have a bunch of stuff installed that you don’t want. This will free up additional space and prevent rogue processes from running in the background that are not necessary. Look at the website on REJZOR’s signature he has a rogue process terminator that will elimate all but the necessary windows functions. To view process’es click control/alt/delete at the same time and click the tab that says process’es.
Also you might want to get a free registry fixer from majorgeeks.com with a system of that age you may have a registry that is totally trashed. I think pcpitstop.com also has a free computer checker.
Spybot is good but should be used in conjunction with AD-Aware at lavasoft, and spyware blaster from javacoolsoftware.com. Both are FREE
if you bought the pc from surplus you probably dont have the original windows disk, this is unfortunate because it sounds like a case of needing to reformat your hard drive and starting with a clean slate. Windows sometimes gets the equivalent of clogged arteries after several years of use. Besure to use your system accesories such as “Scandisk” “Disk Cleanup” and “Disk Defragmenter”. Your performance issues are probably related to a trashed hard drive not Avast.
Congratulations, you found the problem! I have a loaded test machine here, and only have 22 processes running, and this is running at 3.6Ghz… You have an ancient system there, and have DOUBLE the processes running. Its not hard to figure out thats your problem. I don’t think anyone here really wants to get into each process and how to remove them, so the …
Simple Answer is: RE-INSTALL WINDOWS
PS: Spybot is average. SpySweeper from Webroot has the best detection ratings. But you really need to know how to NOT have everything run resident.
Well, it’s not about avast! running faster, actually, it’s about your computer running faster. Every running process takes some memory and other resources; if you have a big number of them, it’s certainly noticeable.
Which ones can be removed? Well, it’s up to you I guess - I don’t know what you need/use.
Also, your computer is not that old or that bad. Depending on what your using it for it is probably perfectly acceptable. Things such as internet surfing, email, office tasks, music listening, even dvd movie viewing should be fine with this computer.
If you have a video card that can handle it. If your not getting good pictures\video quality on the web or otherwise. Check to see if you have a pci or agp slot for video chores and consider an upgrade. You can find nice 64mb cards that are extremely cheap, and are capable of most everything except hardcore gaming.
Probably not very good for playing graphically intense games.
