Question on computer response time......

[CorCentral]

When will a computer be able to run everything smoothly, such as opening & running other programs, etc. while running a virus scan??

Everything feels sluggish while running Norton Anti Virus Not so sluggish as to not being able to search the web or do anything else, but it just seems it should be faster with my setup.

Intel P4 3.2/800
Intel 865PERL
1024mb Mushkin High Perf. pc3200 2-2-2
EVGA 6800GT

My computer is free from crap & is very clean, updated to the hilt & defragged monthly.
Is it the software, the computer or both ?


I remember the good ole days ('94) A Pent 166, Diamond 4meg vram videocard & 64meg of sys ram was top notch for home use. Ram back then was $20. + a meg & this videocard I believe was like $500. +

I'm not complaining mind you, just curious.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

virus scan is constantly accessing hdd which is major bottleneck, esp if the system is actively needing to use VM. Maybe when everything is solid state this problem will disappear.

 

[Phoenix86]

WRONG FORUM!

It won't happen soon. When the A/V is scanning your I/O goes to poop. The only way to help this is to speed up the access/data transfer rates, IE get a faster HDD. Solid state HDDs may "solve" the problem, but until those are consumer level products...

Another "solutions" might be to slow the scanners down so they don't suck up so much I/O.

 

[CaptnKirk]

I normaly run multiple programs in the scan mode, start each one up and end with 4 programs running:

1) Norton Anti-Virus Scan - Full system scan, 4 partitions HDD0, 2 partitions HDD1, Raid Pair (each is 120GB)
2) Pest Patrol - Full scan/all
3) Ad-Aware - Full/all
4) SpyBot - Full/all

Then I websurf in Yahoo or Google while they run - takes about 15 minutes to complete.

 

[Injury]

Seeing as the virus scan is a constant process, it's no surprise that it takes constant processor power. The solution to this is to just run a virus scan when you are on your way out the door or going to bed.

If you are looking to still be working while running the virus scan, then start it up, hit CTRL+ALT+DEL, go to the list of the processes, find the scanner, and change it's priority to low. While usually futile, this might help you at least be able to do some word processesing or something while it's scanning.

An even better solution is to just not get viruses, though.

 

[IGBT]

...I leave all the automatic features off and run manual scans with my Norton..so it's not running in the backround consuming syst resources..otherwise it slows things down. I run a manual scan once a day. Been doing this for years with no trouble yet.