Norton Auto-Protect slows windows xp performance

[John]

I am seeing significant performance problems with Windows XP using the auto
protect feature of Norton Antivirus. I'm using Norton Anti-Virus 2002 on
Windows XP SP1 with all updates from WindowsUpdate installed and all updates
from Norton (Symantec) installed. I have repeated the following 5 times
with near exact results after several reboots:

1. Disable Norton real-time auto protection
2. Launch Internet Explorer, which appears in less than one second
3. Using Internet Explorer, navigate to google.com, which loads in less than
one second
4. Close Internet Explorer
5. Enable Norton real-time auto protection
6. Launch Internet Explorer, which appears after 20 seconds
7. Using Internet Explorer, navigate to google.com, which loads after 18
seconds

I see the same behavior when loading other applications such as Word
Perfect: 4 seconds with autoprotect disabled, 21 seconds with autoprotect
enabled.

If I view the Task Manager during the above operations, I notice that the
"System" process uses significant processor cycles when autoprotect is
enabled, but close to zero when it is disabled. In fact, the processor is
pegged until the application loads, or the web page is displayed. The
Navapw32.exe and Navapsvc.exe processes don't any processor utilization
whether the autoprotect is enabled or disabled.

Thanks in advance for any insight you care to offer.

John

 

[kurttrail]

I am seeing significant performance problems with Windows XP using
the auto protect feature of Norton Antivirus. I'm using Norton
Anti-Virus 2002 on Windows XP SP1 with all updates from WindowsUpdate
installed and all updates from Norton (Symantec) installed. I have
repeated the following 5 times with near exact results after several
reboots:

1. Disable Norton real-time auto protection
2. Launch Internet Explorer, which appears in less than one second
3. Using Internet Explorer, navigate to google.com, which loads in
less than one second
4. Close Internet Explorer
5. Enable Norton real-time auto protection
6. Launch Internet Explorer, which appears after 20 seconds
7. Using Internet Explorer, navigate to google.com, which loads after
18 seconds

I see the same behavior when loading other applications such as Word
Perfect: 4 seconds with autoprotect disabled, 21 seconds with
autoprotect enabled.

If I view the Task Manager during the above operations, I notice that
the "System" process uses significant processor cycles when
autoprotect is enabled, but close to zero when it is disabled. In
fact, the processor is pegged until the application loads, or the web
page is displayed. The Navapw32.exe and Navapsvc.exe processes don't
any processor utilization whether the autoprotect is enabled or
disabled.

Thanks in advance for any insight you care to offer.

Dump Norton AV, it is a well-known resource hog. I did, both at home
and at work, and have been happily computing ever since.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

It has an awful lot to do with your system specs.

On my system, an Athlon XP 3200+ with 2-256 meg strips of DDR 3200 RAM, When
I click on my Google desktop icon (placed there by me) it opens immediately.
Internet explorer depends upon what "home" page you are using. Some load a
lot more graphics than others. MSN loads a lot. It takes about 4 seconds for
it to open. If I use a text base home page, such as www.newshub.com/tech, it
loads instantly.

Word 2003 takes 3-4 seconds to open.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[John]

Dump Norton AV, it is a well-known resource hog. I did, both at home

and at work, and have been happily computing ever since.

Well, I don't want to throw Norton in the trash. I'm convinced that
something is broken and that Norton should not have this negative impact. I
run it on several other computers with no problems. I was hoping that
someone might know of this specific problem and point me to a solution.

John

 

[John]

It has an awful lot to do with your system specs.

On my system, an Athlon XP 3200+ with 2-256 meg strips of DDR 3200 RAM,

When...

Thanks Richard, but I don't think system resource is my problem. This is a
2GHz machine with 128MB RAM. Plenty of metal to load IE in a second or two.
My IE home page is set to blank, although we can take browsing out of the
equation.

There is a significant impact to the time it takes to load any application.
A 1000% to 2000% increase is insane, just like Crazy Eddie's prices. I'd
expect maybe 10% at most. All the autoprotect should be doing is scanning
the exe and any libraries dynamically loaded by it. I think that something
on my machine is keboshed.

Thanks in advance for any further thoughts.

John

 

[Guest]

Norton is a resource hog, and you might want to try PC-
illin 04. WAY less memory utilization, daily updates and
(from PC Magazine) the highest virus detection and false
positives.

There are also many free anti-virus programs, AVG Anti-
Virus, trend micro housecall, etc.

 

[John]

Norton is a resource hog, and you might want to try PC-

illin 04. WAY less memory utilization, daily updates and
(from PC Magazine) the highest virus detection and false
positives.

Thanks for the tip, but my goal is to solve my problem. I'm seeing a 1000%
to 2000% increase in application load time with this configuration. That
tells me something is broken. I have Norton Antivirus with autoprotect
running on several other machines with no problems at all.

John

 

[Al]

Have you checked Task Manager for anything eating up CPU time? On one
machine I had to set NAV ccpxysvc.exe to Manual because it was slowing
everything down. Found that solution at Symantec site.
Al

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

By default, Norton Antivirus is set up for comprehensive "smart scanning".
It scans ALL files, not just .exe and .dll. Change it to "smart" scan if you
like and see the extensions it will then scan. Remove what you want from the
list.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[MechMan]

Under the Smart Scan/Customize ... remove the .JS extention and reboot.
It's worked for many of us.

*By default, Norton Antivirus is set up for comprehensive "smar
scanning".
It scans ALL files, not just .exe and .dll. Change it to "smart" sca
if you
like and see the extensions it will then scan. Remove what you wan
from the
list.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard


This is
a
second or
two.

-
MechMa

 

[John]

Have you checked Task Manager for anything eating up CPU time? On one

machine I had to set NAV ccpxysvc.exe to Manual because it was slowing
everything down. Found that solution at Symantec site.

All I can see in the Task Manager is that the "System" process is the
culprit. I know that Task Manager hides many processes in this one bucket
in the display. I've found a utility from the wizards at SysInternals
called process explorer
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) that will let me
look at what processes or drivers are eating cpu cycles behind the "System"
facade. I'll have accesss to the problem computer again tomorrow and let
the group know what I find.

John

 

[John]

Under the Smart Scan/Customize ... remove the .JS extention and reboot.

It's worked for many of us.

I'll have access to the problem computer tomorrow and will give this a try.
While it should help to a nonzero degree, I still don't see how it will
significantly improve my 1000% to 2000% load duration for a simple operation
such as loading IE. If Norton Antivirus is the only process causing the
slowdown, it just doesn't make sense to me. All it should have to do is
scan a handful of files in kernel mode. I'm also going to try a utility
called Process Explorer
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) that I found at
SysInternals that will let me see more detail behind the "System" process
that Task Manager reports. I'll report back to the group with what I find.
Thanks all.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

During startup, more than a handful of files are touched by Antivirus, if it
is set for "comprehensive" scanning. Every file in the layout.ini (in
prefetch) is touched during the boot. Every one of these files is scanned.
It can be many hundreds of files.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[John]

During startup, more than a handful of files are touched by Antivirus, if
it

is set for "comprehensive" scanning. Every file in the layout.ini (in
prefetch) is touched during the boot. Every one of these files is scanned.
It can be many hundreds of files.

I don't have a problem with system startup. My problem occurs when trying
to load a single application.

 

[John]

All I can see in the Task Manager is that the "System" process is the

culprit. I know that Task Manager hides many processes in this one bucket
in the display. I've found a utility from the wizards at SysInternals
called process explorer
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) that will let me
look at what processes or drivers are eating cpu cycles behind the "System"
facade. I'll have accesss to the problem computer again tomorrow and let
the group know what I find.

John

Well, I've run the Process Explorer utility from the good folks at
www.sysinternals.com to look under the hood of the "System" process when
trying to load IE and other applications with Norton Autoprotect enabled. I
can see that there are two threads that each are consuming about 30-40% of
the cpu cycles. They both have the same start address:
ntoskrnl!ExQueueWorkItem, which is an obsolete call used by device drivers
(like Norton Autoprotect) to queue chunks of work to be executed by a pool
of kernel-mode threads.

I can come up with only these thoughts: 1) two threads in the Norton
Autoprotect software are peppering the queue with a ridiculous amount of
work - unlikely I think; 2) two threads in the Norton Autoprotect software
are deadlocked - more likely perhaps; 3) the Norton Antivirus software has
exposed some Windows XP bug; 4) Norton Antivirus is somehow conflicting with
some other software.

I realize these are not very conclusive thoughts and represent a dead end to
me. I'm close to a re-install of Norton Antivirus, but I'd love to get to
the bottom of this. Anyone from MS or Norton out there with some thoughts?

Thanks again all. John