McAfee sucks

[Doug]

In my opinion, McAfee virus scan sucks. And I will tell you why. I
have an XP running on a Pentium 4. Whenever McAfee runs it's automatic
virus scan in the "background" it uses up almost the entire CPU and
slows down the computer to the point where it's unusable.

The people at the support site are clueless. The last thing they asked
me to do was a "clean install." After I did everything on their list to
install the program again, the problem just came back. Every time i
talk to them, they give me some new advice that never works. Then on
top of that I can't get in touch with any one else at the company
besides the tech support people who can't help me. I'm sorry i paid for
this crap.

What good is a virus scanning program that renders your computer
unusable? I would rather take my chance with the viruses!

anyway. Just a little rant. have a nice day!

-d

 

[Patty]

In my opinion, McAfee virus scan sucks. And I will tell you why. I
have an XP running on a Pentium 4. Whenever McAfee runs it's automatic
virus scan in the "background" it uses up almost the entire CPU and
slows down the computer to the point where it's unusable.

The people at the support site are clueless. The last thing they asked
me to do was a "clean install." After I did everything on their list to
install the program again, the problem just came back. Every time i
talk to them, they give me some new advice that never works. Then on
top of that I can't get in touch with any one else at the company
besides the tech support people who can't help me. I'm sorry i paid for
this crap.

What good is a virus scanning program that renders your computer
unusable? I would rather take my chance with the viruses!

anyway. Just a little rant. have a nice day!

-d

I had this same problem with McAfee a few years ago on a 98SE computer. I
never could run the resident antivirus program since it slowed my 850Mhz
(at that time) computer to a crawl. Currently I'm using Avast Antivirus
which is free for home use. Some folks like it, some do not. I've been
using it for over a year now and like it well enough.

http://www.avast.com/

Patty

 

[Mat]

Ive never had problems with Mcafee myself.Although i do have quite a high
spec laptop 2.8ghtz pentium 4 with 1gb ram.Think it depends on pc spec
really as my old laptop had problems running norton 2003 (which im using
now)and that was only a P3 800mhtz and 512mb ram.But both Norton & McAfee do
have bad habit of slowing your pc down whatever spec ur pc is.Perhaps one
day in years to come we may not need a firewall and antivirus
software.(awaked from his dream)oops nope that aint gunna happen lol

 

[Vanguard]

Whenever McAfee runs it's automatic virus scan in the "background" ...

Automatic? You mean scheduled? If it is scheduled, is there an event
defined for it in Task Scheduler? If so, configure that event to NOT
run until the computer has been idle for, say, 20 minutes, and configure
it to stop if the machine stops being idle (so it doesn't continue to
run when you walk back to it and start using it).

 

[Doug]

didn't see any event defined for it in task manager. as a matter of
fact, the "Scan my computer at a scheduled time." box is unchecked. I
think the program is doing this for no other reason than to annoy me.

-d

 

[Tasslehoff]

What version McAfee are you running? I've used 7 and now 9 on XP and built
several computers with it without any problems at all. Can't comment on
version 8 as I've never used that. It only uses 30-40% CPU usage when doing
a full scan of my computer (2.8 P4C) and virtually negligible cpu usage for
background checking. Which process in the task manager is using all the CPU
usage?
Do you have DMA enabled on your HD. How much available physical memory do
you have? How long have you had XP installed. Any more than two years and
I'd do a slipstreamed SP2 install.

 

[Tasslehoff]

Hmm seems the full scan takes 35-60% CPU usage.

What version McAfee are you running? I've used 7 and now 9 on XP and
built several computers with it without any problems at all. Can't
comment on version 8 as I've never used that. It only uses 30-40% CPU
usage when doing a full scan of my computer (2.8 P4C) and virtually
negligible cpu usage for background checking. Which process in the task
manager is using all the CPU usage?
Do you have DMA enabled on your HD. How much available physical memory do
you have? How long have you had XP installed. Any more than two years
and I'd do a slipstreamed SP2 install.

 

[Dave Budd]

@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>, dougd99
@XXXXremovetheXearthlink.net says...

In my opinion, McAfee virus scan sucks. And I will tell you why. I
have an XP running on a Pentium 4. Whenever McAfee runs it's automatic
virus scan in the "background" it uses up almost the entire CPU and
slows down the computer to the point where it's unusable.

The people at the support site are clueless. The last thing they asked
me to do was a "clean install." After I did everything on their list to
install the program again, the problem just came back. Every time i
talk to them, they give me some new advice that never works. Then on
top of that I can't get in touch with any one else at the company
besides the tech support people who can't help me. I'm sorry i paid for
this crap.

What good is a virus scanning program that renders your computer
unusable? I would rather take my chance with the viruses!

anyway. Just a little rant. have a nice day!

-d

Well, we run the Enterprise version on a few thousand machines
here and it seems fine.
You got any interesting options set for that scan? It's not
trying to scan a network, is it? Or All Files with a diskful of
MP3s or something?

 

[Dave Budd]

@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>, dougd99
@XXXXremovetheXearthlink.net says...

didn't see any event defined for it in task manager. as a matter of
fact, the "Scan my computer at a scheduled time." box is unchecked. I
think the program is doing this for no other reason than to annoy me.

-d

Do you not get the VirusScan Console with the retail version?

 

[Oh God It's Him Again]

I've been using McAfee for years, on a variety of evergrowing computers, and
have never seen the performance hits you talk about. My current computer is
nowhere near state-of-the art, but McAfee is fine on it.

But I don't know what you mean by the "automatic scan in the background" -
mine doesn't do that, and I can't see why you would want it to since it
checks all inbound from any source. But even when I occasionally set off a
manual scan (paranoia rules!!) I can carry on doing other stuff.

 

[Doug]

I downloaded from the web, and paid a fee for one year of service. I
have the McAfee Security Center and virus scan build 9.0. And at
random times, usually when i first start the computer up, it takes up
every bit of available CPU time.

 

[Doug]

I've been using McAfee for years, on a variety of evergrowing computers, and
have never seen the performance hits you talk about. My current computer is
nowhere near state-of-the art, but McAfee is fine on it.

But I don't know what you mean by the "automatic scan in the background" -
mine doesn't do that, and I can't see why you would want it to since it
checks all inbound from any source. But even when I occasionally set off a
manual scan (paranoia rules!!) I can carry on doing other stuff.

I turn on the computer. McSheild.exe will not let anything else run.
That's pretty much it.

Is there any way that I can tell exactly what it is scanning?

 

[Dave Budd]

@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>, dougd99
@XXXXremovetheXearthlink.net says...

I turn on the computer. McSheild.exe will not let anything else run.
That's pretty much it.

Is there any way that I can tell exactly what it is scanning?

I have one colleague here who has a similar problem with
VirusScan Enterprise edition version8. Rather than work out
what was wrong we switched him to version7. You won't be able
to do that...
If it'll come up in Safe Mode, use that to disable the autoload
of McShield, then scan all of C: - you ought to see which file
it hangs up on when it reaches it. Then you can add that to the
exclusion list. Repeat as necessary.
Or, if you can find them, there are some patches on the NAI
website. A wander round http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/ might be
useful.
Or just get something else.