Lots of Antiviruses slow down my PC but why?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by sportsfan7700, Sep 1, 2014.

  1. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    i am asking this question in all honesty. I can't run AV's like Bitdefender, 360TS, Avira in some cases because they slow my computer to a crawl even with updates. Is my processor really that terrible that it can't handle the normal everyday tasks?

    2.40 gigahertz Intel Core i3-2370M
    64 kilobyte primary memory cache
    256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
    3072 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
    64-bit ready
    Multi-core (2 total)
    Hyper-threaded (4 total)
     
  2. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    I'd say upping your RAM to 8GB would insure much better performance.
     
  3. trott3r

    trott3r Registered Member

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    It shouldnt be a problem with that spec.

    You are not running 2 realtime AVs at once are you?

    Maybe your hard drive is dying.
    Download hdsentinel and see what condition the drive is in
     
  4. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    I would also suspect problem with HDD. Also check your running programs and services, you might use software that produces a lot of I/O activity which could require AV to constantly scan it. If you are using MBAM with your AV you can try and add exclusions in both of them.
     
  5. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Sigh, if that's the case it will be the second time it's been sent in. Hoping not.
     
  6. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    it says it's perfect. hmm
     
  7. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Upgrading on a laptop is beyond my knowledge.
     
  8. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    I just found an old license for ESET NOD 32 so switching to it until either black Friday or if I can use a 100 day promo license from another forum. :)
     
  9. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    I've used Nod in past and found it really light. Please tell us, how it will perform on your system.
     
  10. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    It has performed excellent in the past. So far so good.
     
  11. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    Replacing the hard drive with an SSD is always a good upgrade for laptops, but it's pretty involved (you'd have to do a fresh install of Windows).

    Lots of AVs are resource hogs though. What's your cpu and usage at normally? Check with Task Manager.
     
  12. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    Usually, the real problem is not raw CPU usage (the AV rarely uses more than 2-3% from a CPU) but the fact that a real-time scanner acts when you want to do something. For instance: when you want to open a file, the opening will be delayed in order for the AV to scan it; but even if this scan does not take a lot of CPU, the delay is noticeable to the user. The same goes for any other operation that is guarded by your real time AV.
     
  13. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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    the CPU is fine and so is the RAM amount

    if the HDD shows no problem I would go for an OS reinstall
    after that look for Toshiba's and third party software that you can disable/uninstall
     
  14. mufofalaxius

    mufofalaxius Registered Member

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    Decent Anti-Virus/Internet Security programs are resource pigs even on fast overclocked machines. Bitdefender is very heavy.

    It is not necessary to run a resident a-v especially if you use Sandboxie and AVGuard. Certain manual scanners are just as effective as Bitdefender. I find running manual scanners such as Hitman Pro, http://z-oleg.com/avz4.zip, [URL='http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/aswmbr/dl/1/']ASWMBR[/URL], Malware Bytes A-M, Emmisoft A-M, Comodo Cleaning Essentials adequate.

    Try just running a effective resident Anti-Malware such as Emsisoft Anti-Malware and using the Windows scheduler to run Hitman Pro every 4 days. Hitman Pro finds absolutely nigh on everything.

    AVZ4 has lots of terrific tools for windows security and exploit protection in the drop down menus and is very good at detecting rootkits. It uses Kaspersky engine, don't forget to update it.

    A very good adblocker - browser extension [URL='https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adguard-adblocker/bgnkhhnnamicmpeenaelnjfhikgbkllg?hl=pl']AdGuard[/URL] for Chrome

    VT Hash to check integrity of certain system files such as svchost.exe. It is not necessary to run a software firewall either as the hardware router has one.

    2 1/2" laptop drives are of nasty quality and slow. I suggest a SSD.

    The solution is to really take Windows 7 off and install Windows XP, even a slimmed down version of XP, even if you not running an A-V. Then it should move on your hardware. You will not lose anything using XP but gain lots of speed.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 1, 2014
  15. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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    o_O
     
  16. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Veeshush,

    Where did you read that? It's not correct. Most imaging apps can copy an OS from a HD to a SSD.
     
  17. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    Consider what an AV does on its most basic level. It takes every file, instruction, bit of code, etc and checks them against huge blacklists of undesirable code. For simple browsing, this means checking every page, every ad, every fetched link, object, etc against a list that can contain identification info for several million variants. Just the process of checking against blacklists is incredibly processor intensive. Add to that examining code behavior in much the same manner. The more malware that gets created, the more difficult the task becomes. AVs that use whitelisting functions don't fare much better. Lists of clean or desirable code are as extreme as the blacklists. As long as AVs rely even partially on blacklists or whitelists, there going to be extremely demanding on system memory and processor time.
     
  18. AutoCascade

    AutoCascade Registered Member

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    Are you sure there isn't some left over something or other from an old AV screwing things up?

    I disdain an AV constantly running since they are behind the curve anyway. Its much better imo to use mitigation techniques and anti exploit programs along with weekly scans from on demand scanners.

    I use MBAE, Zemana Anti Logger - just the anti logger portion, AppGuard, WinPatrol and Sandboxie along with DNS Trigger which validates dns queries. I also have no constantly active plug ins on in Chrome using them on demand as necessary.

    ESET on demand, MBAM on demand, EMISOFT Emergency Kit, NPE though it has many false positives and Panda Cloud on demand.

    This is just the philosophy I have picked up from reading Wilders and for me it works.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2014
  19. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Auto, no. I reimaged my old computer with nothing installed beforehand
     
  20. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Is that Windows 7 64 bit? If you are running a dual core and have 4GB of RAM or less I would recommend running 32 bit Windows. I would not do 64 bit unless I had a quad core. NOD32 is a good product if your machine is choking on others. Also, as others have stated, installing a SSD would help a lot as well.
     
  21. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    @sportsfan7700

    For what it's worth the AV with the lightest impact in my experience is Webroot SecureAnywhere. I run it on all of my machines and have found it to be stable and problem free. If you're interested it's available as a free trial on the Webroot site.
     
  22. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Vic, I've tried Webroot and it is indeed excellent. I may go back to it, just trying different ones out because I want to make a full decision by the end of the year and let it be.

    Jack, once I start working a tad more, an SSD is definitely in order.
     
  23. treehouse786

    treehouse786 Registered Member

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  24. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    Thanks for the hint, it looks interestingly. Btw, do you know which "multiple antivirus engines" in the cloud are used?
     
  25. treehouse786

    treehouse786 Registered Member

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    taken from their website;

    they have a developer on this forum who is very helpful https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/secureaplus-freemium.350914/

    i recommend setting up the program like this for maximum lightness but only if you are sure the pc is not infected prior to installing the program. you will still get notified about any potential malware and nothing without a secure certificate can run without prompting you first as also shown below

    Capture.JPG Captured.JPG
     
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