NIS 2012 - CPU Load Reduction

I know someone who installed Norton Internet Security 2012 on a PC which has a Dual Core Intel Atom CPU. NIS 2012 frequently says that the PC is running out of CPU. The PC has plenty of memory (At least 2 GB, I think 4 GB). The OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

Please offer recommendations on which options to change in NIS 2012 to reduce the CPU usage.

If you feel that there is not much that can be done to reduce CPU usage, please suggest a decent alternative AV (preferably free) with reduced CPU usage.

Thanks in Advance.

 

I posted this in this forum at couple times but will do so one more time.

I am to lazy to log on to my XP installation where NIS is installed so I will give you the settings for NAV which is installed on my active WIN 7 installation. These should guide your friend to the approximate area in NIS.

Open up NIS and go to Settings -> General -> Norton Tasks. Turn off "idle time optimize." What NAV/NIS does when that setting is on is do a special idle time Symantec HDD defragment that eats the resources of low powered and many high powered PCs.

 

Turn off "Idle time optimize", "Performance Monitoring" and "Monthly Report".