Update causing problems.

Whenever avast updates the virus file my computer runs very slowly. This can take twenty minutes or more and is very frustrating. I’ve thought of two solutions to this:

  1. Keep my computer on all the time, and have avast download updates in the middle of the night. To try to set this up I’ve gone to Settings/Update/Details and set the Auto Update every X minutes to have the next update occur in the middle of the night. I then plan to change the period the next day to update every 24 hours so it’s always in the middle of the night. But this doesn’t seem to work - avast still updates the virus file in the middle of the day.

  2. Not use avast or any virus checker. Since I only access four different websites, all of which ought to be reliable, and I don’t download any email on this computer, would that be permissible?

Grateful for any help.

Welcome Arbu

What are your system specifications as to CPU type and speed and how much RAM does the system have?

Hi YoKenny

The computer is a laptop and has a processor speed of 1.8GHz according to the manual that came with it, but only 1.5GHz according to the System Information tool. It has 256MB of memory with just 23.5MB available when I checked just now. The computer can have a mximum of 512MB according to the manual.

Arbu

Who is the manufacturer of the laptop?

Adding RAM would be the best improvement you could make.

Go to crucial.com and downlaod the RAM memory scan tool:
http://www.crucial.com

I do not know where you can get RAM in the UK for that system.

Thanks, I’ve ordered the memory and see if that improves things.

It might not improve things much as processor speed of 1.8GHz is limiting as well.

I had a XP Home system with 2.4GHZ P4 and 512MB RAM and it became too slow for me so I sold it to a friend that had a Win98SE system and he is quite happy with it.

Well, I can’t change the processor speed. It’s certainly not worth me buying a new computer. If you (or anyone else) can address the two points I made initially, I’d be very grateful.

There is usually a minimum 1 update per day and sometimes more.

The latest update I see is 091130-1 at 12:15:34 PM

You could leave the system powered on and the updates will come down when they are ready as by default update checking is every 4 hours (120 minutes)

The memory upgrade should help a lot. If it doesn’t, set the Virus Database to update manually and then trigger the update yourself at the end of the day before logging off.

YoKenny, it seems to me that the updates come down as soon as they’re ready. As I mentioned, setting the frequency to check for updates to 24 hours doesn’t seem to have worked.

Gopher John, that’s not a bad idea (assuming this setting works!). It’s not much trouble to download updates manually.

Slightly off topic, but related … apparently Alwil’s now doing a minimum of two updates daily, as of about two weeks ago. I’d asked about that in another thread here.

Try to maintain your PC by cleaning unnecessary files, registery entry and stuff.

Till your ram arrives, try to use this Ram utility called FREERAM XP Pro

This will free your ram when u run it.

http://download.cnet.com/FreeRAM-XP-Pro/3000-2086_4-10070530.html

By the way, its better to do a manual update than an automatic update when your not doing anything on your PC.