spybot 1.6 scan running very slow /teatimer hog

[lilacbay]

New to the forum -have been using spybot several years; :bigthumb:
system is xp sp2 (all updates); ie6 browser (slimbrowser)
spywareguard, norton antivirus, winpatrol, SpywareBlaster, and
have 2 harddrives - c:=1 ntfs 40g all my programs other=1 fat32 80g-all my files

spybot snd version 1.6.0.31 - teatimer version 1.6.3.25

I always clear cookies temp files etc prior to running any of my scans;
and have 'forced' closure on my internet connection prior to log off.

my new scan took from 6 in the morning until 7 in the evening to run -
(just showed green tracks and 1 red ad something) and asked to run on reboot.

froze my machine at start up the next day trying to ??? delete??? or rescan?
I am not sure of what did or didnt occur.:oops: It never got to windows just showed some small spybot screen. the rescan (after 3 hours-I shut down and rebooted with sb turned off) showed tracks only (and some of the same that were deleted the evening before? - this may be just reoccurring stuff) -
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I have tried to locate answer through the thousands of posts; but not much
seems to fit? I have the latest; did a clean install; scanned off line
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teatimer starts out small with 12.9k i/o reads but 101,084k after 2 hours on the net seems to make my computer whine..... I shut down and wait for my computer to cool off.... :sad: is there a fix for the latest teatimer.exe to not be such a hog? spybot, explorer, and teatimer are the biggest hogs

explorer.exe=i/o reads 214,260,234
peakmem 35,532k i/o read bytes 577,326,493
weird, never saw this before updating to sb 1.6
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have loved the product -Miss being able to select Just the Registry or the shorter scans - from previous. Really dislike the 13 hour scan. Am scared to try to scan again. (would like to just scan what's new in my computer not Everthing Everytime. Lots of stuff is not accessed between scans)

Plus - I am one of those whose computer is ReallY slowed down (on the net and opening folders when on/off line) Please help.

Ought I go back to the old version???:red: I already deleted the last one I have and dont know where to get it back from. my old spybot never used this much resources or cause explorer to be so high? they may not be connected.

Thanks in advance for any tips or explanations. If you need more info let me know.

a newbie to fixing my spybot scan

[lilacbay]

I need to know where to go. If this is not the proper area -thank you
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=37012
Lilacbay

ps cant find a way yet to delete this posting

[Greyfox]

lilacbay,

Going on the size of your drives, the PC is possibly a bit dated, which raises the question of how much memory it has. As the number of threats have increased over time, so have the resources needed to deal with them, and if your PC is starved for memory, the result will be a significant increase in the time taken to do things.

Can you tell us what type and speed the CPU is, and how much memory does the PC have.

I would suggest for the moment you turn off Teatimer. Start Spybot, put it into Advanced mode, then go to Tools/Resident and untick the teatimer box. Reboot.

Now start Spybot again, goto Settings/File Sets. Right click in the white space toward the right hand side of the screen, and from the right hand click menu select Spyware Check only. (The scan will now not look for usage tracks). Now carry out a scan. At the end of the scan have Spybot attempt to fix any items shown in Red. I would then recommend rebooting and repeating the scan to ensure that there are no items left shown in Red.
Can you post back whether you were able to do this OK.

You mentioned a figure of 101,084K for Teatimer. This was obviously from Taskmanager. If it was from the Peak Mem Usage column it would be about normal, and should have a corresponding Mem Usage of around 50,000K, if it is running in Conserve memory mode. Can you clarify which column the value you quoted was from.

There are two other tests you can make, the first is to time how long it takes to do a full scan with your antivirus software. This can add perspective to the time for the Spybot scan. The second is to time a Spybot scan (with your browsers closed and off line) with the antivirus and any other real time antispyware temporarily turned off.

[rdflesher]

My scans lately have been between 12 and 18 hrs. The pc is almost unusable . so much that I only scan once a week now.

I too have 1.6.

[brumman]

My S&D scan is also several hours long (4-5h) and I had to disable teatimer completely - as said above it hogs the memory and CPU usage is 100% so computer freezes. Even in the previous version I couldn't use teatimer either because then it worked but refused every reg change and there was no functional "allow" button!
my computer is also old and slow with 294M ram but surely rather than say update your system perhaps a lean basic version of Spybot could be an option?
Strange - just as I typed "update system" a new browser page opened to Microsoft windows updates!?

[Greyfox]

My S&D scan is also several hours long (4-5h) and I had to disable teatimer completely - as said above it hogs the memory and CPU usage is 100% so computer freezes. Even in the previous version I couldn't use teatimer either because then it worked but refused every reg change and there was no functional "allow" button!
my computer is also old and slow with 294M ram but surely rather than say update your system perhaps a lean basic version of Spybot could be an option?
Strange - just as I typed "update system" a new browser page opened to Microsoft windows updates!?

brumman,
The authors of Spybot have probably done more that most software developers to support older systems, however time moves steadily on. The vermin who produce the spyware/malware seem to multiply like rabbits and the number and complexity of the threats continues to increase.

The July 9th 2008 Spybot updates, just after the introduction of version 1.6 contained 176,938 rules. The last update on 26th November 2008 contained 340,806 rules, an increase in just 4 months of 92 percent, or nearly double.

Now you say your PC is taking 4 hours for a scan, or about 8 times longer than it takes me to do a scan on my 18 month old PC. No amount of smart coding improvements can bridge that sort of gap, so to achieve the lean basic version what would you suggest.

Perhaps the number of threats scanned for might be reduced (well the settings are there for you to do that now with the current version) but of course increasing the risk of being infected.

Perhaps there could be a version without immunisations (again you can opt to do that with the current version, and again with risk attached, but also immunisations don't affect the scan itself).

The lean basic version could perhaps be without a Systems Settings protector (Teatimer), or without SD Helper (again you can deactivate both of these in the current version). I could continue along this line, but the point is that one of the very nice features of Spybot is the degree to which you can configure it to best suit your requirement.

The truth is that at some point in time when older systems run out of resources to handle today's needs, then you have limited choices, put up with the poor performance, update the platform, or cut back on what you expect it to handle. If I were running a platform on Win2K, with only 294MB ram, then until I could update the platform I would certainly not run Teatimer, and I would try changing the scan to either "Most Active Malware" or "minimal spyware check" to reduce the time taken. That is however only going to delay the inevitable.

My 10 cents worth, feel free to disagree.

[lilacbay]

TO Greyfox
I don't understand; Are you another Member or Part of the Answer Team at Spybot Forums?
----To Answer some of your questions=
a---I Chose Smaller Drives (personal choice) - I dont require huge drives. Small drives doesnt mean ancient.

b--- What does the CPU speed have to do with this question?? I even have 3 Fans inside (1 dedicated to the CPU) ---see below --Extra Info from My machine

c--Is SPYBOT S&D is Requiring Users to have the Latest machine in order to run their program? If so, then there ought to be stated Somewhere in the documentation.
-------By the way I havent seen Any Comment such as above about SpyBot S&D.


If the team members need the extra info here it is -

Issue 1
Yes my Initial Scan requested upon reboot took 16 hours to complete ( I had that blue screen and only Spybot window giving
the option to quit?) As this was a new upgrade - I let it run from 5am until 9pm ish.
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Issue 2
Teatimer SEEMS to be good for monitoring system - Mine 'Whines" after several hours of basic work (I think gets really HOT and slows down my machine hugely). This occurs Off the Net and On (without accessing spybot for updates etc.; just in the startup of my machine).

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Extra Info from My Machine
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OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600

System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 3 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~2532 Mhz

Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 127.34 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB

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If you need more info, I will check back soon (I will try the different ways to run spybot and see if there is any change in the run times; (as suggested above)---)

Please Help

LilacBay

[Greyfox]

I don't understand; Are you another Member or Part of the Answer Team at Spybot Forums?


No, just an experienced user, the same as many others taking part in this forum.



I Chose Smaller Drives (personal choice) - I dont require huge drives. Small drives doesnt mean ancient.

I did not in fact use the term ancient. In lieu of specific information in the original post, the only indication as to the possible type of platform was your statement "have 2 harddrives - c:=1 ntfs 40g all my programs other=1 fat32 80g-all my files".

New 40MB drives have not been available for quite some time, so what I said was "Going on the size of your drives, the PC is possibly a bit dated, which raises the question of how much memory it has". I used the term possibly because you may have been using the term drive instead of partition, and it might have been a 120GB drive with 40GB and 80GB partitions.



What does the CPU speed have to do with this question?? I even have 3 Fans inside (1 dedicated to the CPU)


CPU speed and type, along with memory are part of a PC's processing ability. A slower CPU, single core instead of dual or quad core, low memory, slow access drives etc can all contribute to longer scan times.



Is SPYBOT S&D is Requiring Users to have the Latest machine in order to run their program?


No, but older, slower machines can be expected to take longer to achieve the same task. That said, 16 hours for the PC spec you gave in your last post would appear to be excessive, particularly if this the time taken to scan only the 40GB operating system drive or partition.

The whine you are referring to is probably the speed controlled fan increasing its speed as the result of rising temperature. Do you get the same problem if you disable Teatimer?

You might find some of the information in the following thread of interest http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=40622