To see if avast! is scanning emails, check one of these points:

  1. Is the avast icon (the special one of email scanning) be shown in the system tray?

  2. Is your email header with the lines X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0XXX-X, XX/XX/2004), Inbound message and X-Antivirus-Status: Clean? (Right click the message, choose Properties and Details)

  3. Are clean notes added at the bottom of the email? (Internet Mail provider settings)

Note, I’m not an expert on eicar behavior. It was just a guess. I think there isn’t any other email test besides eicar. Oh, of course, you can test the security of your email system here: http://www.gfi.com/emailsecuritytest/