I've found that my 600X and 770Z machines don't run ANY anti-virus program
very quickly anymore! Particularly if the "on access" scanner and
web/internet scanner are turned on.

I've used Anti-Vir and AVG, and now use Avast! on my 600X. Four or five
years ago, any of these would have run fine on a PIII 650MHz -- though I
found Anti-Vir ran fastest, and that's why I used it back then. But it seems
like they've all bloated up now, and perhaps also the heuristics they use is
more intense now, and the on-access probably has to work harder because I'm
running programs that are also all bloated up and no longer streamlined for
old, slow CPUs.

So, I don't think the issue is probably specific to AVG. I would recommend
finding some reference on how to tweak the settings of AVG to reduce disk
access. Looking through the log files can help. At one point, I found that
Lenovo Access Connections was actually causing my virus scanner to activate
about once a minute because it was apparently checking the file that AC uses
to create that cool dynamic view of your locally available wifi connections.
In that case, adding Access Connections to the anti-virus exceptions list
produced an immediate speed boost for me. (Though it turned out that
everything was even faster when I got rid of Access Connections all
together!)

My 600X is no longer my main computer, and so I am perhaps a bit more
willing to play fast and loose with some anti-virus settings on it. But I
usually have the web browser filter turned off (I usually browse on my 600X
with JavaScript and Flash disabled, and I use an up-to-date version of Opera
or Firefox, and so am practically immune to viruses via regular web
browsing), and I sometimes have on-access turned off as well (I manually
force a virus check of anything I download from the web). Those two are the
real CPU hogs I think: the browser/internet scanner and the on-access
scanner.

The right solution for you may depend on what exactly you are doing with
your computer. If you are doing word processing, you shouldn't be getting
slowed down by any anti-virus scanning. And in some cases, you may be able
to disconnect from the Internet and turn your virus scanner off altogether.

Phil.

Simon Royual wrote on July 19, 2010 16:36 (EDT):

> Hi
> 
> Ive got a TP600, maxxed on ram. Most of the time it runs XP
> Home and it does it very well.
> 
> I installed AVG as an anti-virus. I have used it for every
> Windows machine but they have all been higher powered than this TP.
> 
> XP ran well - well enough - until I put AVG on it. It really
> chugs now.
> 
> Is this normal? Does AVG 9 take a lot of juice?
> 
> Simon
> 


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