extremely slow AV scan

  • Thread starter Thread starter Edw. Peach
  • Start date Start date
E

Edw. Peach

I bought my computer last November, Pentium IV with XP Pro. I use
Norton's AV and notice that scanning my HD is extremely slow (a scan
took about 1 1/2 hours last night, 161,000 files!) I have been a
computer user for many years now and have never seen such a slow
process. I can defrag is twenty minutes. (Not that these two actions
are directly related, mind you.)

I watch the scan plod along, 5-10 files at a time. This has me
thinking that something else is going on here. Perhaps I have other
XP services running that would grind my scan to a crawl? What sorts
of services might be slowing me down like this?
 
Edw. Peach said:
I bought my computer last November, Pentium IV with XP Pro. I use
Norton's AV and notice that scanning my HD is extremely slow (a scan
took about 1 1/2 hours last night, 161,000 files!) I have been a
computer user for many years now and have never seen such a slow
process. I can defrag is twenty minutes. (Not that these two actions
are directly related, mind you.)

I watch the scan plod along, 5-10 files at a time. This has me
thinking that something else is going on here. Perhaps I have other
XP services running that would grind my scan to a crawl? What sorts
of services might be slowing me down like this?
Click to expand...

This is a Norton issue.Look at this link and consider another antivirus:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,115939,pg,5,00.asp I do own a
copy of Norton Internet Security 2004 but it would not run to my
satisfaction on my P4 3.08\ 1.5g RAM. I installed Eset NOD32 along with
Agnitum Outpost firewall and never looked back.

-nos1eep
 
Thanks for the chart. At one time, Norton's was quite good but
perhaps it is time to look elsewhere for AV scanning software.
 
Edw. Peach said:
Thanks for the chart. At one time, Norton's was quite good but
perhaps it is time to look elsewhere for AV scanning software.
Click to expand...

Yes it was, Symantec really screwed it up. I would advise you to stay away
from Zone Alarm with antivirus as well. It also has issues.

-nos1eep
 
I swore off Norton products years ago. They are too bloated and intrusive. I
currently use free ZoneAlarm and free AVG anti-virus. AVG is updated on a
regular basis and does not impact performance to any noticeable degree.

FWIW, JAX
 
Hmmm...I was thinking about this when I was away from my computer and
even if Norton's screwed up in a big way with this latest release,
there is no way it should take over 1 1/2 hours to scan for viruses.
Are there any other issues that might affect its performance? I went
to their site and tried looking up 'slow performance,' and similar
phrases and found nothing. When I do any virus scan, should I do
anything special? Should I turn off services of any sort? When I
scan, I don't use my computer for other tasks.

I have been using Zone Alarm Free for years and have had no problems
with it at all. Since I use cable, I'd rather not be online without a
firewall. What sort of issues with ZoneAlarm?
 
software.

Umm, prehaps you should go back to that link and look
at ALL of the ratings; as in 99% detection, etc. Not
saying you're wrong, but ... it's a good deal in my
books - just run av when you aren't on the computer.

Pop
 
I have Norton & when I run a full scan it takes about two hours. I have
gotten use to it & just go with the flow, not much else you can do other
than change who you get your virus protection from.
Marsha
 
On some fairly recent release of ZA there was a problem. I don't recall what
it was but, ZA provided a fix for it via e-mail notification.

So far as Norton goes, you would have to have a drive somewhere in the
terabyte range for it to take as long as you said it takes to do a virus
scan with AVG. It takes about 7/8 minutes to scan my primary HD with AVG.

JAX
 
You should run your virus scanner when you are not doing anything else on
the computer. That is to say, no other applications running.

JAX
 
I wrote the NAV people about the slow scan time and got this response:

This can happen because Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2004 even scans
compressed files which the previous versions does not scan. Hence, it
takes a long time to scan when compared to previous versions.

The article the technician referenced said that NAV scans for these:

Detection of non-viral security threats
Besides viruses, Trojans, and worms, Norton AntiVirus now includes
expanded threat detection for the following types of known and
emerging threats that could put your computer at risk.

* Adware
* Spyware
* Hack tools
* Dialers
* Remote access programs
* Joke programs
* Security risks

The funny thing is that I've NEVER had a report of any spyware from a
scan. Hmmm...I use Ad-Aware frequently, and Spybot. I will
experiment, pick up some known spyware, leave it there and see if
Nortons picks it up. Maybe I could visit the Gator website, using IE
with my security maxed out, but accepting cookies. (I don't use IE as
my main browser.)

I am not a technician myself, but can't understand why a Pentium IV
would take that long to scan my files. Perhaps I just don't
understand the actual process. Perhaps? No, I definitely don't
understand it. LOL.

That must be one serious scan...going from about 15 minutes (on my old
computer, with NAV 2003) to 90 minutes+.
 
Back
Top