Discussion Antivirus maxing out 8 threads

[igor_kavinski]

And Windows Defender is now frozen after scanning 555418 files with time remaining at 6:43 minutes.

What the HELL???

 

[coercitiv]

USB flash drive

555418 files

People who write this many files on a USB flash drive should be marked as malware.

 

[mikeymikec]

And Windows Defender is now frozen after scanning 555418 files with time remaining at 6:43 minutes.

What the HELL???

I'm routinely seeing a problem with Windows Defender whereby it wants to do a quick scan so you click on the button to start it, the progress bar gets partway across, then stops. If I close the window at that point, it suggests the scan completed.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Dang Win11 lazy outsourced development team!

 

[igor_kavinski]

People who write this many files on a USB flash drive should be marked as malware.

Wasn't really my choice. I usually take a full backup of my work files before I go on a vacation, in case someone (particularly the proud IT admin gorilla) nukes my work PC in my absence. I think the backup must've finished really quick because normally for this many files, I would create a solid archive first and then copy to USB due to poor 4K write speeds on USB drives.

ESET WAS able to complete the full scan but then I think it scans fewer files of interest.

 

[Josh128]

Still think people don't need more cores?

Antivirus is a virus itself. I dont use them as they are incredible resource hogs that bog down PCs and often have Trojans and malware embedded in them.

 

[igor_kavinski]

often have Trojans and malware embedded in them.

Now that's a new one!

 

[Josh128]

Now that's a new one!

I've fought with Norton Antivirus on my mother in laws ( who INSISTED on having it) PC so much thoughout the years that I consider it malware. I'd never install that junk on my PC. Same for Mcaffee.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I've fought with Norton Antivirus on my mother in laws ( who INSISTED on having it) PC so much thoughout the years that I consider it malware. I'd never install that junk on my PC. Same for Mcaffee.

Yeah. I don't install most AVs. There really is no need since Windows Defender can be pretty effective. If I need extra protection, I may install Malwarebytes but really haven't needed to.

 

[MadRat]

It takes a long time to initialize file transfers across USB, so no wonder 500k files take 4 days to scan.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It takes a long time to initialize file transfers across USB, so no wonder 500k files take 4 days to scan.

It didn't take four days. The time taken to scan till the given figure was roughly an hour but after that, Windows Defender just froze and its threads went to zero CPU utilization. It's like it encountered some internal error and just didn't know how to move forward. May need to take a look at the event log.

 

[LightningZ71]

Check the windows system log for read and write errors. USB SSD chips will overheat easily if worked hard and I wouldn't be surprised if it started throwing errors or needing excessive retries for them.

 

[LightningZ71]

It takes a long time to initialize file transfers across USB, so no wonder 500k files take 4 days to scan.

This is one of the things that hurt Windows Ramboost performance. The USB sticks had much better response time than the mechanical drives of the day, but read/write overhead really hurt it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Imagine how successful Robson cache would've been if Intel had used even just 8GB Optane. But the technology wasn't ready yet. Someone once gave me a laptop to fix. Windows wasn't loading up. Went into the BIOS to check. There was a setting to disable Robson cache. Did that and Windows booted right up. Seems the cache had reached end of its life.

 

[Thibsie]

Wasn't really my choice. I usually take a full backup of my work files before I go on a vacation, in case someone (particularly the proud IT admin gorilla) nukes my work PC in my absence. I think the backup must've finished really quick because normally for this many files, I would create a solid archive first and then copy to USB due to poor 4K write speeds on USB drives.

ESET WAS able to complete the full scan but then I think it scans fewer files of interest.

What kind of USB ? Proper (expensive) key or cheap one ?
Just curious.

 

[igor_kavinski]

PNY 1TB. Fluctuates between 10 to 25 MB/sec. Good enough for me. I bought their 512GB one too but that was atrociously slow. Took a chance this time and performance is not bad for the price and capacity.

 

[LightningZ71]

Tom's has a review summary for USB drives that gives decent suggestions on what's out there. If you're going for 1TB and larger, the 1TB versions of the Tube T31 and the Adata SC750 are solid choices as both are essentially externally attached NVME over USB-C SSDs and are rated for the kind of abuse repeated AV scanning throws at them. They're both rated for 10Gbps throughput, thought that's going to be burst speed as both are tested to R/W in the 500MBps range.

For the PNY 1TB, feel it while it's scanning. It's probably going to get quite warm. I've seen people crack open the case and stick a small heatsink on them to good results in the past.

 

[StefanR5R]

@igor_kavinski, shop for an IPx7 or better rated memory stick and a USB extension chord, and dangle the stick into a glass of iced water during the AV scan. ;-)

 

[igor_kavinski]

@igor_kavinski, shop for an IPx7 or better rated memory stick and a USB extension chord, and dangle the stick into a glass of iced water during the AV scan. ;-)

I like how you think!

 

[igor_kavinski]

For the PNY 1TB, feel it while it's scanning. It's probably going to get quite warm. I've seen people crack open the case and stick a small heatsink on them to good results in the past.

It's plastic so not sure if the heat would escape easily enough to be felt properly. Anyway, I don't need to scan it all the time. Someone bought a new laptop for a really good price and it came with viruses pre-installed. I had already connected my USB to it without knowing that so I was concerned if the virus had taken refuge in my USB. ESET let it pass and I also connected the USB to a few of my benchmark machines and Windows Defender didn't freak out so it's fine I guess. And yes, I nuked that laptop and installed fresh Win11 IoT on it because the deal was just too good to send back.

 

[Thibsie]

PNY 1TB. Fluctuates between 10 to 25 MB/sec. Good enough for me. I bought their 512GB one too but that was atrociously slow. Took a chance this time and performance is not bad for the price and capacity.

To give a very little idea, an install of win11 to USB usiing rufus.
Normal sandisk 16GB : about 15-20 min
Sandisk extrême 128 GB, 5 years old : 1.5 min

Just saying....

 

[Thunder 57]

I've fought with Norton Antivirus on my mother in laws ( who INSISTED on having it) PC so much thoughout the years that I consider it malware. I'd never install that junk on my PC. Same for Mcaffee.

IIRC it was Norton that offered you the wonderful abaility to make money during your computer's idle time by mining. The ROI was so laughably bad. More like negative ROI because that's what it was.