On-demand scans make system too slow to use

ESET NOD32 V. 3.0.672.0
On XP Pro systems (one with 1 GB RAM, another with 4 GB RAM)

If user starts up system and on-demand scan starts, the system is so slow it is unusable. Opening ESET and stopping the scan quickly brings things to normal, but then scheduled full scans are not being performed.

I leave my system on overnight, but have MANY files, so the scan is often still running in the AM when I log on. I just stop the scan in order to be able to work.

I don't want to teach my clients that stopping the virus scan every day is the way to resolve their performance issues, nor do I want to stop using scheduled scans.

Is there a way of throttling the amount of system resources used by the scheduled scans? Have any of you seen this - scans run so heavily that the system is basically useless during scanning?

Funny, I have been telling my clients that one good reason for changing over to ESET (mostly from Symantec) is that it is less of a resource hog. Now, I wonder...

 

Try upgrading to the latest version (4.0.467) of ESET NOD32 and see if this resolves your issue. Current customers with valid licenses will be able to upgrade for free. If this issue is still happening after that, please let me know.

 

Are on demand scans really necessary to be run every night? Or are they recommended to be run that frequently? Thanks for all your help.

 

Not really eager to push out the new version yet, but that may be an option. Has it been the general experience that V 3.x has a tendency to bog down a system more thatn V 4?

And Sting23Ray makes a good point - with real-time enabled, how necessary is it torun a scheduled scan every night? I have noticed inthe past (a while ago now) that it wasn't uncommion for a scheduled scan to get something missed by the real-time scanner. So, I developed the habit of scheduling scans nightly, which run first thing inthe AM if the system wasn't running at the time of the scheduled scan.

Maybe that thinking is flawed?

I've heard comments from ESET that saily scheduled scans shouldn't be required "if the software is properly configured", but have never managed to get anything specific about what that means. And with their incredibly poorly documented ER Console, it's hard to feel confident that you've configured it "properly".

 

I run my weekly scan time-triggered @ 10080 seconds/once weekly

 

Siljaline, thanks for the input. Maybe that's the way to go - training the user to leave their system on, say over the weekend, will be relatively easy, since forgetting to do so could result in their system being so slow first thing Monday otherwise...

However, don't you find it a bit annoying that they sell this product as having so little overhead, then it drags the system to a crawl when it's run?

Oh, I know it's better on that front than the Symantec products, but still...

 

We also have our systems setup to do a full scan once a week and have been debating the need of a weekly scan with real-time protection enabled. After monitoring it the last few months, we have found that the full scans find things that were never found by the Real-Time scanner. So we are leaving out weekly full scan in place.

 

I find that frustrating too - ESET would have you believe that if that happens (scheduled scans finding something missed by real-time) then it's YOUR configuration's fault, not theirs.

If there's a "special trick" to configuring their software that isn't immediately apparent, you'd think they'd document it somewhere...

To be fair, this problem was far worse when the majority of my clients were running Symantec Corporate Edition - I would NEVER run that product without full daily scans!

 

This is a set and forget setting
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1579898&postcount=5

 

Sorry Siljaline, but I'm not sure what you mean by a "set and forget" setting:

Are you talking about scheduling a full scan weekly? (I get that.)

What is this 10080 second thing you refer to?

 

I don't get it either what Siljaline exactly means with @ 10080 seconds/once weekly.

But it would be a hell lot easier if there was a optional command to give after the scheduled task (ie. scan) to finish. That way you can tell the computer to shutdown when the scheduled scan is done. Just like every back-up software has.

A command to run before schedule task would also be useful, to start a cleaning script (clear temp dirs) for example so it will reduce the files scanned.

Now I do got a way to start a manual scan at shutdown with the command-line scanner but this is not ideal since it doesn't log inside EGUI log files so it can report it to a ERA server.

 

As such, Gents - 10080 minutes when creating a scheduled AV scan, calculates to once per week, time triggered.

 

Yes you posted 'seconds' in the first post, minutes would indeed make more sense

 

Absolutely, Bramb - this option is not a default scan when NOD is initially installed, it has to be created by the user and tweaked to the user's needs.
Personally, I don't see any logic in running an on-demand scan more than once weekly.

Cheers,

 

Agreed, a once a week scan should be more than enough in the early hours when users aren't at their desks.

 

Not to get on your case or anything Eset support but you should direct end user to remove older version first and reboot before installing version 4. Most of these people are clueless and would just simply download version 4 and install it with version 3 still there. Even if the ver 4 installer routine is smart enough to uninstall 3 this is not the best scripted installer/uninstaller way to go about doing it is it!?! You guys even point out to use shortcut in start menu to uninstall Eset software and not the entry in Add/Remove Programes so obviously there is concern about how the uninstaller runs and I'm sure the ver 4 installer acting as a ver 3 uninstaller is WORSE than the windows add/remove program uninstaller/script. And perhaps less debugged or beta/tested... I know it's bloody obvious to the rest of us but not to these lusers

Solid-State

 

With regards to scans and time frame for it... I now do daily full on-demand scans for the first time ever as I only have ever done full scans on machines on Friday nights historically. The thing is this daily scan isn't done with Nod32, I do it with Hitman Pro as it's lightning FAST and is almost the same thing as scanning with 6 AV programs on a signature level... WICKED! Gotta love cloud AV technology! Hopefully Eset will move in this direction.

Solid-State

Eset Nod32
SAS
Outpost Pro
Hitman Pro
PeerBlock with Spyware and Dshield blocklist (dam I wish Outpost could download IP blocklists or directly support dshield)
MBAM on demand

...and free of infection! insert disclaimer "As far as I know!"

PS I still run that full Nod32 scan weekly as I will never trust Hitman Pro like I do Nod32 heuristics even if Hitman Pro uses Nod32 definitions!

 

Overkill, mon ami !