ewido 4 (free) cpu usage seems excessive

Hi Friends,
I'm new to these forums, although I've been using the free version of ewido (ie - resident shield and automatic updates both disabled) for several months. A week ago I downloaded and installed the new version 4.0. Although I experienced not a single problem with the previous version, it looks like I won't be so lucky with this new one .

The last few days I've been having brief freeze-ups of my entire system. I was worried I might have picked up some malware, but thorough security scans (CWShredder, Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, ewido, Norton AV, and HijackThis) have not detected anything. So I've been attributing it to hot weather, since this is the hottest time of the year, where I live. A couple of security professionals have indicated that a pc running a little too warm can slow a system, and maybe even freeze up briefly.

But it's very frustrating, so today, I opened the Task Manager, hoping to find something untoward, which might be tweaked in order to free up more system resources. I don't understand what I'm seeing there, about ewido , and I'm hoping someone here can explain it, and maybe it can be corrected, if it turns out I'm not using ewido properly, or something like that.

What I'm seeing is cpu usage of ewido.exe fluctuating almost contantly, while I'm logged on to the internet. It's only between 02 and 05, and every several seconds, it peaks up to 08 to 10. But when I do something else, like open or close a program, save a doc, post a message, etc, which typically uses a lot of cpu, and which happens at the same time ewido spikes, then the cpu gets max'd out, and everything freezes for a few moments. This is happening with the ewido program closed, and with automatic updates, and resident shield both disabled. I never saw this with the previous version. And my experience is that programs which are closed display 00 cpu. Heck, even those that are open and running are usually 00. Watching the running processes in Task Manager for awhile, I see that NO other processes are using as much cpu as ewido.exe is. Occassionally taskmgr.exe jumps to 02, and one of the svchost.exes and explorer.exe jump up to 02 fairly often. But still, ewido.exe is more active than any other process, cpu-wise. When I'm not on the internet, there is no problem.

I've done a little searching of these forums, and find a few similar reports. Most are in the Beta forum though, with no solutions offered. And there are a couple of threads in this forum, but the culprit in them is guard.exe, the resident shield, which would be expected with that feature is enabled. But I haven't seen any problems exactly like mine, so I'm thinking it's either something I've done wrong, or something about my system, which is causing this.

I'm not sure what info might be helpful, but let's start with this:

Intel Pentium 4 - 1.8GHz
Hard Drive 37 GB total, 8 GB used, 29 GB free/open
RAM 256 MB
Windows XP Home SP2 and fully updated

Anything else, please just ask, and I'll post whatever is needed.
Thank you very much for any help you can offer.

 

[
I'm not sure what info might be helpful, but let's start with this:

Intel Pentium 4 - 1.8GHz
Hard Drive 37 GB total, 8 GB used, 29 GB free/open
RAM 256 MB
Windows XP Home SP2 and fully updated

Anything else, please just ask, and I'll post whatever is needed.
Thank you very much for any help you can offer.[/QUOTE]

first you are running that computer with 256mb ram. If you have nothing other than ewido on that computer you should have no problems but if you are running other applications and or services 256mb ram is not enough to carry all this. this could be why you are running so high too. Windows xp sp2 usually uses 256mbs ram itself. Now try to run other programs on it, you will see problems. You can ask others here maybe how to fix your ewido problem but I suggest you get more ram at least 512. Try 512 first because ram is not that cheap and see if it makes a difference.
I run 512 with alot of things running and sometimes i get a slow down but not much, sure I could use 1gig on this computer, i just do not have the $199 it costs now for it but I do plan to upgrade it to 1gig.
robin
robin

 

This must be the computer manufacturer's price! Dell for example are famous for the high cost of their extra RAM.

But surely, a Crucial 512 MB RAM upgrade for your computer cannot be this expensive!

 

[off-topic]i could get 2 gigs for less than $200[/off-topic]

anyways to answer the OP' question, cpu spikes have been reported before but i dont know how its using ur cpu when its closed.

if u just want to use it for on-demand scans, disable it from starting automatically, disable the shield, and then disable the ewido service.

 

yes it can, the cheapest I have priced it at- and yes this is a dell dimension 8200, is $189.00 for both.

What i did do was increase the graphic card & memory from 68mbs to 128mbs, that did make a big difference on how graphics loaded. Most of the memory I need is for graphics and that helped alot and that only cost me $40.

One of these days when i see it on sale for under $100 I will go for it. I need rdram pc800's.- that ram is not cheap.

robin

 

Thanks for all your comments
Well, it has occurred to me that if nothing else, I could simply uninstall it...then reinstall should I ever need it. After all, I have some very good and powerful security programs already, without ewido. And goodness knows I spend so much time updating and scanning for security, I would be glad for an excuse to drop a program from the process. I can always install it, update it, and scan with it, if I find myself choked by malware. But it just strikes me as odd that a program the size of ewido uses more cpu than even Norton AV. I mean, doesn't Norton take so much grief for being so bloated, and a resource hog? NAV is at least 3 times larger than ewido, probably 4, maybe more, if I got right down to calculate. Yet ewido uses more cpu! And not just more than NAV. It's using more than every program I have, security or otherwise!

Yes, I agree I have the lower end of the range of RAM (256 MB), which is necessary for most programs these days. But it's not too low. Frankly I find this a poor excuse by a program of such current esteem. Yes, I'm at the lower end of the range for RAM, but none of all my other programs exhibit this much cpu use. If ewido v 4 is supposed to be using so much cpu, and what I'm seeing in Task Manager is normal and expected, then the problem is not a lack of RAM in my system. The problem is ewido using excessive cpu.

Well, thanks again for all your comments. I will keep an eye on this thread, should more comments be posted. For now though, I'll probably just uninstall it.

Best wishes.