Kaspersky Antivirus - High CPU Usage

Kaspersky Antivirus - High CPU Usage:

I know someone who has a Windows XP Pro 32 bit PC (4 GB RAM). He reports that the Windows Task Manager shows that a Kaspersky Process is consuming at or near 100% of the CPU. He has to sometimes disable Kaspersky to do things such as download a file.

What could be causing this high CPU usage? What are some suggested steps for further investigation into the cause(s) of this problem?

He has 130 days left on his Kaspersky AV. I suggested that he should consider switching to an AV with lower Resourse Usage and install and start using Sandboxie to make up for any possible downgrade in Malware protection that may result from switching AV's.

What are some suggested "low to moderate resource usage" AV's that still give a decent level of protection? Note: I am not asking for "A versus B". I would just like some suggestions.

Thanks in Advance.

 

I usually uncheck the idle scanning and rootkit scanning
and do u full scan when installing first time
does he use nething else with kav ?
also u can go in settings and tick the option - conede resources to other applications

 

There is absolutely no doubt that if you really need a fast AV the you should look towards ESET Nod32.
As required by you ,it would give you decent protection.

Also, I have personally disabled Idle scanning .
This link might help you :

http://forum.kasperskyclub.com/index.php?showtopic=7424

 

That usually makes my machine slower, but that may not be the case for everyone. I likely suspect a conflict here with other software. You can always attempt to use the GetSystemInfo tool and upload the results. If you cannot interpret the results yourself you can post it to the Kaspersky forum for assistance.
http://www.getsysteminfo.com/

 

beats me as to why Kaspersky continue to market a product that can be such a memory/cpu hog when most other vendors don't have the same problem with their products,It is one of the reasons I stopped using their products after many years of doing so,that and having the feeling that each product release was just like an extended beta-test:-the last few products have been released before they should have been and haven't worked correctly for about 6 months after being released,even their removal tool can cause issues with an office install if used as directed,so if the AV product doesn't get you removing it can!

 

That's weird.. Are you sure you're not talking about bitdefender here?

 

No def kaspersky,jumped through all sorts of hoops in conjunction with support at kaspersky's uk labs,got cheesed off in the end,no matter what I sent them re logs etc and no matter what was suggested problem still remained,Lisa was very very helpful though,pity as I had used kaspersky products since it was called AVP!

 

Same road here; started off with AVP Silver/Gold and progressed through to today's efforts.

AVP was light as a feather, great detection and great support from Lisa and chums at Kaspersky UK.

I receive free licenses through my bank for KIS but have not run it for any length of time for a few years now due to bloat and various problems with the newer versions, including high CPU, which were never solved.

 

Back to KIS and i have done all the settings i mentioned above and its running light as feather

 

Why buy a product and have to disable half its features to get it to run ok?might as well buy a product you don't have to do that to!If these features aren't needed why include them in the 1st place?

 

Those features are not needed to run it efficiently or increase the protection
u can do the scanning manually anytime

 

I used KIS6 >2010 and there was quite alot of bugs that werenever solved and instead uneeded features were added. I feel that removing the custom install option was a bad idea also. their virus lab is very good whenever I send them a sample or FP and always get an email reply. some of my customers still use KIS so thats why I send KL samples.

 

why include them then if all they do is cause some users problems?

 

Strange... im using the default settings and its running light as feather.

 

There are benefits to those features. Rootkit scan will scan for any active rootkits that may be undetectable by FileAV realtime protection. Runs once a day and doesn't last longer than a few minutes and runs in background with low priority. Gets rid of the need to run/schedule critical area scans.
Idle scan runs only when a screensaver is active, stops immediately after screensaver goes away/user starts working on the machine. Useful for caching data on primary partition so it doesn't need rescanning by realtime protection, thus increases performance.
Norton, avast, ESET have such features as well.
And believe it or not, those two are unlikely to have been the culprits to high CPU usage the OP has as it's much more likely to be a conflict with programs installed, or simply KAV not liking the system- such as your case.

Blasphemy!

 

Thinking to enable those 2 features and see how it goes on my system

 

I know they had problems with length of time a background scan used to run in kis 2010(may have been kis 2209:-lose track!) and brought out a critical fix for it,I would have thought from that they wouldn't have had same issues with current version

 

They don't for most people. I have not had any major issues with 2012. They only reason I am not using it at the moment is because I am tired of them not keeping up with the Firefox updates. And that is more of a matter of principle than it is a functional problem. I have had 0 issues with CPU, or RAM, or disk activity, or slowdown at all. Not to say nobody does. There are people that have problems with any version of any product. It is likely a conflict with something else. But I am sure the vast majority or people have no problems with the current version. You don't like them. And you don't have to. We get it.

 

well said, lol

 

Actually you are wrong about not liking them,I think Kaspersky UK are best bunch of guys for support of all companies we deal with,both for their corporate products and home user,and we use their product on our company network,its the way their home products have gone in the last few years I have issues with,especially the fact that they have with release of products from kav 5/6 onwards seemed to be using their customer base as an extended beta testing resource,like I said I was reluctant to move from Kaspersky initially has I had a great respect for what they had achieved in the past and still feel their products offer good,perhaps even best,real world protection:-I just couldn't live with the bugs/issues

 

Fair enough. It just that the comments you are posting sound like they relate to the way people felt about the 2011 version with its very short development cycle and the fact that it never felt like a finished product. The 2012 version has been a turnaround for them and I do believe that if someone has minor issues with it they can be identified and fixed and it is not the majority experience, this time. If someone posts with a problem, if we can't help them the Kaspersky forum or tech support possibly can. If at that point they can't find a resolution, then maybe a different product is in order. Then they can start posting the problems they are having with that one.

 

I have been a devoted NOD32 user for several years, but recently switched to KAV. The problem I've been having with NOD isn't so much with the detection rate, but rather with the program's inability to clean some of the malware it detects. I was looking for an alternative, but was scared off from KAV for fear it would slow my system down too much. Recently a close friend got a really nasty trojan that kept him from using the Internet at all. NOD detected it, but said that it couldn't fix the problem. He's running a home-built desktop with an antique AMD chip--not exactly the pinnacle of processing power. In spite of this, I rebooted his computer in safe mode and uninstalled NOD. Then I rebooted it in safe mode with networking, downloaded and installed the trial version of KAV, updated it, and ran a scan. It solved the problem right away--and it didn't seem to slow my friend's computer down at all. I was so impressed I put it on my system, and it found 10 pieces of malware NOD had missed. The upshot of it is that both of us are now running the paid versions of KAV, and neither of us has had any problems.