Avira security suite 2012 and system freezes

Before a couple of months ago this problem never occurred.

System: WIN XP 512 MB RAM

For as far as I know, only when running Opera. Perhaps it is related to newer versions of Opera ? I have no idea.

Perhaps both the Avira suite and Opera are memory hogs ?

It is not that rare that actual memory in use exceeds the available 512 MB RAM. I'm too cheap to buy extra RAM for this system. It's really old.

When the system freezes, two out of three of scroll lock, num lock and caps lock stop working. I'm not sure which one continues to work
No mouse movement, alt-f4, control-alt-del and the computer's on/off button don't respond. The screen just freezes. The only solution is to turn off the power.

The eventviewer doesn't give any clues beside the fact that avkmgr.sys, avipbb.sys and avgntflt.sys were loaded shortly (0-2 min ?) before the freeze/crash.
This is just a promo version.

Any ideas ?

 

Have you tried uninstalling Avira and see if it still happens?

 

Insufficient Ram is most likely the cause. You can of course try some other security solution or even without one

 

Actually, I haven't. But I installed Avira on a known clean image. So there are no leftovers of other security software, including other versions of Avira.

Yes, maybe it's the RAM. But why would that cause system freezes ? Shoddy programming ?

No problems without security software.

 

Yes, that sounds as a low ram-related error.

You could try uninst/reinstalling Avira to see if that helps or, arternatively, swap for another light solution.

Also you might try posting your issue on Avira forum.

 

avira causes freezing for me as well but right before sleep and i have 16gb ram for sure not ram related have offered them all the info and no one gets back to me. honestly looking elsewhere now, using it for the time being till i find something else i like as much

 

There is no thing as "not enough memory". If the physical RAM is used up, Windows will start use the swap file. I guess you put a limit on the size of the swap file and that the requested memory exceed that limit.

But I strongly suggest you get at least 1 GB, better 2 GB memory for Win XP. It makes a HUGE difference how fast Windows reacts overall.

 

512 MB *should* be enough for a security suite and a browser if you just browse the internet.
Even with Avira, the system is usually very fast as long as Avira isn't updating or doing something that taxes the CPU heavily.

I haven't had any similar problems with other security software *ever*.

If Windows would start using the swap file it could slow things down, but why the system freezes ?

It might be some interaction between Avira and Opera. Opera can be a memory hog. The last freeze occurred after loading the files I mentioned. Perhaps not a coincidence ?

 

I have an old notebook (XP Home) which had 512 MB of RAM and was behaving exactly like yours.
One of the problems creating awful delays was 'Windows Updates' set in automatic.

Once set to manual it was booting faster and would use less RAM. In the end though, what really made a huge difference (as mentioned repeatedly in this thread) was adding RAM, I upgraded it to 1GB and the problem disappeared.
It is easy to do the math:200 MB with system idle + 100 MB for a browser + 100-150 MB for an AV, and one reaches 450 MB in no time.

You could alternatively use something like Sandboxie or Shadow Defender, and have Avira on demand, excellent protection plus an overall RAM usage of around 300 MB (with Automatic Updates set to manual).

 

Sometimes excessive use of RAM when updating.

Recently when I restored an image as soon as the system got online it started updating. It must have been a lot but I don't think that's an excuse for avguard consuming near 300 MB RAM ! With a tendency to consume more than the available physical RAM. I've noticed that's never good for performance !

On a 512 MB RAM system that's a lot.

I wonder if at times it gets even worse ?

Poor coding, or ?

I guess it's time to look for a replacement.

 

Yes I guess so.

 

i loved avira but alas with the lock ups and bsod's i had to give up. i wish i didnt because its honestly one of if not the favorite i have overall.

 

AVIRA might act well on systems with more RAM but on computers with 1GB or less it is very very bad - start-up, updating, scanning can freeze your computer. Uninstall it and you'll notice your problems gone. For such a low RAM, I'd recommend ESET NOD32 - the only that will run with no issues on 512 MB RAM.

 

imo on a system with VERY little resources webroot is awesome.i installed it for someone to try out on a system with 512mb of ram and a p4 cpu and it really made little to no difference in how the system performed.

 

as the conclusion has been reached and the search for worthy replacement is on, thread closed.