Discussion Antivirus maxing out 8 threads

[igor_kavinski]

Still think people don't need more cores?

 

[bba-tcg]

Still think people don't need more cores?

Although I proudly admit being a core whore, an AV program maxing 8 cores is ludicrous.

 

[Thunder 57]

Still think people don't need more cores?

I blame it on bloated software. Also it should be running on the lowest priority.

 

[poke01]

No one on Windows 11 or even 10 needs an Antivirus software.

 

[bba-tcg]

No one on Windows 11 or even 10 needs an Antivirus softwar

I agree. I quit using 3rd party AV a couple of years ago.

 

[Thunder 57]

No one on Windows 11 or even 10 needs an Antivirus software.

While I agree, @igor_kavinski was talking about in the corporate world where they love to include bloat.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yeah. Especially try butting heads with corporate IT gorillas who look like they will have a heart attack any second but unfortunately never do. You cannot get a single logical reason out of them for the things they do or the decisions they make because obviously they don't want themselves under any sort of scrutiny. Pretend to be "know it all" and experts at fooling the stupid management.

By the way, I'm having to endure that scan for more than 30 minutes every day due to the large number of files on my PC (over 10 years worth of work related stuff). The way it is maxing out a Haswell, even the standard stupid i5-12400 may not help much if I choose to take that red pill.

Probably the only thing that will help in this scenario is an Optane drive (for scanning the thousands of smaller files) and at least a 32 thread CPU so I don't feel the slowdown if I'm doing anything compute intensive. And it throws up false positives with Visual Studio and even g++ compiled EXEs, showing in the log that it "cleaned" them by deleting them which is obviously what the gorilla wants to show to the management. Look forward to a nice showdown with him in front of the COO where I trash the hell out of his "knowledge".

You guys are probably going to be tired of hearing about this gorilla but he's been here more than 15 years and I'm approaching 17 years. He was such a pathetic noob that he once called Microsoft UAE to activate a pirated copy of Windows XP he installed on an office PC. Much to my detriment, I was "nice" enough to tell him that he would get the entire company in trouble with stupidity like that. Another time, he applied for some top Microsoft UAE job. When he got the call, imagine in your wildest dreams what he did? Can you?

Spoiler

He hands the phone over to me and tells me to talk to the recruiter for the job HE APPLIED for and help him get the job!!!!! I was stunned at his utter stupidity. Told him that I was not going to do any such thing because that's the worst stupid thing I've been asked to do in my entire life till that point and when I think about it, still at the very top of worst things asked to do.

And now he is trying to backstab me to try to get me out of the way because he doesn't like that I have the COO's ear in technical matters. He wants to be the only sheriff in town.

Advice on how to deal with this A-hole would be much appreciated, from fellow wise professional warriors here.

I'm literally at my wit's end and I would've simply incapacitated him in some way if it were possible and if I had a mind that diabolical.

 

[mikeymikec]

Although I proudly admit being a core whore, an AV program maxing 8 cores is ludicrous.

Isn't this like the "RAM usage should be minimised / maximised" argument?

IMO either argument boils down to that the behaviour should be configurable. Personally it would irritate the hell out of me if a background auto virus scan has my CPU cooking at 80C with all fans blaring when I'm wanting to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet / keep my power bills down, on the other hand it would also irritate me if I requested a virus scan and it's taking a billion years longer than it needs to because only one CPU core is being used.

 

[bba-tcg]

Isn't this like the "RAM usage should be minimised / maximised" argument?

IMO either argument boils down to that the behaviour should be configurable. Personally it would irritate the hell out of me if a background auto virus scan has my CPU cooking at 80C with all fans blaring when I'm wanting to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet / keep my power bills down, on the other hand it would also irritate me if I requested a virus scan and it's taking a billion years longer than it needs to because only one CPU core is being used.

Indeed.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Personally it would irritate the hell out of me if a background auto virus scan has my CPU cooking at 80C with all fans blaring when I'm wanting to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet / keep my power bills down

Imagine spending 17 years in a company and then getting slapped in the face with an intrusive automatic administrative virus scan like that because some ignorant prick thinks you are a security risk.

 

[BoomerD]

Igor...maybe it just needs some chamomile tea

 

[igor_kavinski]

Igor...maybe it just needs some chamomile tea

HA HA. Mr. Funny Wunny Grumpy Grouche

 

[coercitiv]

Advice on how to deal with this A-hole would be much appreciated

We can tell you this much, more cores won't help.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If I were a malicious bastard, I would send him daily helpings of irresistible desserts till he croaked.

 

[fastandfurious6]

you need a new workplace that guy sounds ridiculous

companies that keep bafoons like that for 15 years are not worth any attention

 

[igor_kavinski]

you need a new workplace that guy sounds ridiculous

Yeah except I believe I'm the senior guy so he's the one who should be finding a new job.

 

[Thunder 57]

Yeah except I believe I'm the senior guy so he's the one who should be finding a new job.

It doesn't work like that. Just because you got in the door first doesn't mean many years down the line you are still rewarded seniority over him. The guy may have been a brown noser or know someone or may be legitimately more valuable. Someone is keeping him there for a reason though and it usually is a bad one.

 

[Sgraffite]

Imagine spending 17 years in a company and then getting slapped in the face with an intrusive automatic administrative virus scan like that because some ignorant prick thinks you are a security risk.

The company may cease to care about you at any time it does not suit its needs.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Someone is keeping him there for a reason though and it usually is a bad one.

Yeah, the COO because he's a micromanagement control freak and he gets his way with this gorilla better than any other self respecting knowledgeable IT guy would let him. The worst thing I regret is giving this bastard gorilla sincere advice and helping him numerous times due to his ignorance and putting up with his arrogance and all the while ignoring the warning signs that he was secretly working to discredit me in the eyes of everyone.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The company may cease to care about you at any time it does not suit its needs.

Found that out 17 years too late

 

[BoomerD]

Yeah, the COO because he's a micromanagement control freak and he gets his way with this gorilla better than any other self respecting knowledgeable IT guy would let him. The worst thing I regret is giving this bastard gorilla sincere advice and helping him numerous times due to his ignorance and putting up with his arrogance and all the while ignoring the warning signs that he was secretly working to discredit me in the eyes of everyone.

You’re in the middle east…right? “Feed” him to the desert.

 

[bba-tcg]

Yeah, the COO because he's a micromanagement control freak and he gets his way with this gorilla better than any other self respecting knowledgeable IT guy would let him. The worst thing I regret is giving this bastard gorilla sincere advice and helping him numerous times due to his ignorance and putting up with his arrogance and all the while ignoring the warning signs that he was secretly working to discredit me in the eyes of everyone.

And, from post #7 above, you passed up a perfect opportunity to get rid of him.

 

[igor_kavinski]

My first clean scan!

 

[LightningZ71]

Do you have an SSD or a mechanical HDD that it's scanning? If you have an NVME/PCIe SSD, is it one of the el cheapo cacheless ones, or is it a higher end one? Do you have a SATA SSD instead?

If you have a HDD that it's scanning, the Optane can certainly help. For other storage device scanning and auditing software, I've seen them make a world of difference for machine responsiveness.
If you have a SATA SSD, then the optane can make a difference in handling multiple file access traffic better, but it won't be as much of an impact.
If you have an NVME, then it'll only give you a boost if you have a cacheless PCIe3 SSD with a poor controller. Depending on the BIOS and how bad that SSD is, the Optane software itself may not let you even configure it as an optane booster for the drive.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Do you have an SSD or a mechanical HDD that it's scanning?

Samsung 860 EVO

I'm thinking that the virus scanning is more compute limited than data transfer rate limited because even with this SATA SSD, the cores are going full tilt. Faster storage would mean more data for the cores to deal with so the CPU utilization would go up rather than down.

There is a slight chance that a better SSD may improve responsiveness. I have a sealed SATA Kingston DC600M SSD that the gorilla gave me for some other task but it went unused so I still have it in my drawer. It claims guaranteed response times which would be an improvement over a consumer SSD. Still not sure if I want to clone my drive over the DC600M because that would be giving the gorilla one more excuse to make a case against me if he suddenly remembers about the drive and tries to account for it.

My company is keeping me on Haswell still and only offering a lame i5-12400 upgrade. No way they would pay for an Optane drive.