New Install Nod32 2.5 Losing Resources

Hi Forum Members!
I had the newest build from Mcafee 9.1.06 which made the Win98 system go buggy, locking the PC up, getting fatal exceptions and locking up rock solid.

I got the new upgrade yesterday 9.1.08 specifically released to fix the known issues with Win98. It did nothing at all. Having read a lot of customer reviews about Nod32, I downloaded a trial today after first uninstalling Mcafee.

I used add/remove programs as Mcafee suggested and then looked around and most of it's gone except a bunch of registry entries (which were entries not listed as "to be deleted" but I saw them as I was looking for what "shouldn't be there").

With only NOD32 2.5 running, I fell from 90% resources available (w/Mcafee at boot) to 83% (w/Nod32 2.5 at boot).

After checking my email and a few other things, my available resources fall to 73% and now after surfing here and registering, my resources have plummeted to 53% free. (never less than 83% with Mcafee 9.1.06 and 9.1.0

I made the move to NOD32 to gain resources used by Mcafee, but it looks like things have backfired on me today. I deleted 40mb scanner for a 7mb scanner and lost a ton of available resources? Puzzling?

Does anyone have any advice for me before I have to re-install Mcafee please? Thanks a bunch!

 

Hi,
Thanks for posting. It begins to lose power as more processes begin running in the background (I have a selective startup...did I mention that the uninstall of Mcafee left some unchecked items in the startup group?).

The faster I work on the PC the faster the resources dwindle. I just had IExp 6.newest shut itself down while on Symantec's site after scanning. I did a Housecall and then a Panda scan to be sure the PC wasn't infected.

I hope to hear from someone. Worse case, I think I can "roll" the system back a day.

 

Hi ronin:

I have seen runaway winsock cause this issue. Try the fix here and let us know if it helps.

 

I went ahead and installed NOD32 2.5 trial version on a Win98 test computer just to see what would happen. The system resources do start out about 83%. As I open up more webpages in Internet Explorer (without closing old ones), the resources do start to drop. Not surprisingly, sites heavy in Flash animation have the largest effect. Eventually, I did manage to get the system resources down about 45%.

However, once I closed those webpages, the system resources climbed back up. As I type this, I have the main NOD32 2 forum open in one window and this "reply to topic" page open in another. My system resources stand at 68%, user resources at 71%, and GDI at 68%. I suspect that one I close these windows, the system resources will climb back up to around 80% within a few minutes. If they do not, I will come back and post a follow up.

Unfortunately, I did not think to compare the system resources with no antivirus installed at all, so I cannot say how much of this is NOD32 and how much is just Windows and Internet Explorer. The computer does seem to work fine for me.

 

Nothing has helped. I had to uninstall my trial version and did a complete cleanup of everyting anti-v. I downloaded the latest build of Mcafee again (since I paid for a year) and eveerything is almost back to normal. (90% at boot and dwindles to about 83%...right now at 77% but I had several browsers open and was surfing sites with the GG toolbar down to check PR on some sites I manage and several searchs for keyowrds phrases on GG. I guess I'm ok now.

I am very discouraged, I had envisioned the low download size of the NOD32 product and it's great reputation to protect me and allow me the blazing speeds I was always able to maintain while using the old Mcafee products (not supported anymore). Whatever happened to lean and mean? Now it's pumped up on steroid RAM & HD sized machines to hande all this bulls*** on the web - enormous AV programs - firewalls - email privacy programs (spam slammin) - worm script checkers - adware/malware programs - I could go on......

 

I loaded NOD32 2.5 on a Win98SE machine, all options set at the max. Been running it for about 7 days now without rebooting. Just checked and resources show 84%. Still seems just as lean and mean as always at this end.

 

Ronin, I am not sure if you realize this, but the Windows 98 concept of "system resources" has *nothing* to do with the amount of RAM you have installed in the computer. Instead, it is a throwback to the Windows 3.1 model of managing applications and the graphics interface. The "resources" are can be thought of as "handles" or "pointers" to programs. By their natures, internet and multimedia programs tend to consume a lot of system resources because they do many things at the same time (network, graphics display, audio, etc.). It could be that NOD32 consumes more of these "system resources" because of the way that AMON and IMON scan things simultaneously.

Usage of graphical items such as fonts also take a hit on system resources. In fact, when fonts are loaded, they are often not unloaded later on. This is done on purpose, so that they are always ready for later use, instead of having to be reloaded. If you open up a program to preview 100 fonts, guess what? Those 100 fonts will always remain loaded as "system resources" until you reboot Windows 98.

To make a really rough analogy, think of "system resources" as the number of programs in use. It does not say anything, though, about the sizes of the programs, or how much CPU they use, or anything else. Usage of "system resources" does not in and of itself make the computer go slower.

Here are a couple of links that probably do a better job of describing this than I do:

http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#resources
http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/resource.htm
http://www.apptools.com/rants/resources.php

If you are interested in things like "memory usage" and "CPU usage", you should take a look at the "System Monitor" instead of the "System Resources". The System Monitor will show you these items as graphs.

I just want to make sure you are clear on the real meaning of Windows 98 "System Resources". You could be obsessing over some numbers that have little practical meaning.