View Full Version : System Resources Nightmare
Sol T. Peters
2007-09-04, 06:53
Spybot 1.5 uses 40% of my system resources when I open it! When I run the scan my system is at borderline crash. Spybot 1.4 used 18% of my system resources and that was bad enough; this is ridiculous. I'm running Windows ME.
I don't believe I'll use Spybot until I read on this sight that the problem has been corrected. If I don't read that soon, I'll just remove Spybot.
Unbelievable.
Maybe you could at least provide details what your system resources are? E.g. how much memory you have? Otherwise reproducing might be difficult.
Sol T. Peters
2007-09-04, 17:17
The system has 128mb of memory.
The point is that there was no serious problem until Spybot 1.5 was installed.
By the way: I opened Spybot before posting and ran the updater. My system resource meter then indicated a 60% usage of resources and was red lining at 11%!!!
Great work, boys.
Sure, I'll tell you a secret: it's all intention - we've implemented a technology just to waste YOUR memory - patent pending! :laugh:
Actually, what usually eats system resources is the user interface, and as you can notice, there are no big changes there. We also use a different memory manager, but that one is actually one speeding things up, not clogging things. We'll give it some tests on ME.
edit: sorry, my fault! The amount of memory doesn't matter on Windows ME, since the area reserved for "system resources" always has the same size. I don't fully understand your measures though, since for me, it has actually improved from 1.4 to 1.5. Here are my numbers (measured with the Resource Meter that comes with Windows ME):
No Spybot GUI open / Spybot-S&D 1.4 / Spybot-S&D 1.5
System resources: 82% free / 24% free / 38% free
User resources: 82% free / 73% free / 76% free
GDI resources: 86% free / 24% free / 38% free
Please note that this is about the GUI, about on-demand scans. TeaTimer takes only a very small amount of resources (had an average of about 1%).
To me that looks like an improvement, but that's only one system for now.
Sol T. Peters
2007-09-05, 01:22
Until an hour ago, Download.com still had Spybot 1.4 available. I downloaded it, removed all traces of v. 1.5 from my PC and installed v. 1.4. Everything is now working as it should. Imagine that.
There obviously is a problem with v. 1.5. Let us know if you fix it. But first, admit it.
:bigthumb:
To admit something, I've got to see it. And to declare it obvious, I need more than just one report ;)
So while I can admit that it should less less resources than the current 40%), that doesn't look like a change to the worse from 1.4 to 1.5 to me. For the future though, the user interface is already planed to get leaner (right now, due to all options being in the same window, it needs to keep everything loaded).
Btw, my tests were on a fresh installation of ME. Might be a more "alive" installation behaves differently.
Snowhelper
2007-12-06, 01:18
I have been a long-time user of Spybot S&D and noticed that an new version was available. I downloaded and installed the 1.5 file from the Safer Networking site and installed the program.
When the install was complete, Spybot seemed to start the install normally but I noticed that it seemed to be slowing the system down as it moved thru the install steps so I opened the Task Manager and found the CPU Usage pinned at 100%. This did not change as I moved slowly thru the rest of the setup.
Finally, I got to the point were Spybot would scan the system - with 1.4.x this would have allowed me to comfortably do other work. CPU Usage was still pinned at 100%. The primary process using the CPU was the Spybot module.
I removed 1.5 and reinstalled 1.4 and ran the install and a scan with CPU usage at less than 50%.
I observed similar behavior on two laptops, mine and a family member's IBM (about 5 yrs old w/256MB RAM, Win XP SP2). My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8500 w/1GB RAM, Win XP SP2 and all updates applied.
This appears to be a problem related to this thread. If you need more information to diagnose or reproduce the problem, please let me know.
ZeldaManiac44
2007-12-06, 02:08
Have you tried ajusting the Scan Priority?
In Advanced Mode (of any version of SB) you can go into the Settings menu (lower-left corner of the GUI) click on the Settings sub-menu in the list that moves up, and the third heading has the Scan Priority.
You can set it to any of the following:
Idle
Lowest
Lower
Normal (Default)
Higher
Highest
Time Critical (Blocks everything else)