Slow/Possibly Frozen

[Stallion_Duck]

Hi, I recently got spybot to help me out with a virus problem that my other antivirus' weren't helping me with and it seems to be finding the things my other anti's were missing but it is running ultra slow. I've finally stopped the scan to restart in the morning because I need sleep (it has been running about 6+ hours). And now that I told it to fix problems it got the first two on the list and I just get the hourglass cursor and no additional progress. How long does it usually take to "fix" the problems?

Thanks in advance,
Stallion Duck

EDIT: I am now getting the good 'ole "(Not Responding)" phrase on the top of the screen...

[Greyfox]

Stallion_Duck,

On the information you provided that's like asking "how long is a piece of string"?

It depends on a number of things such as hardware, what CPU type and speed, the on board memory, the speed, transfer rate of the drive and how much data is on it, and also the software, what operating system, what service packs, what version of Spybot you are using, what AV software and whether that is enabled or disabled during the Spybot scan. It also depends on how much junk is lying around in temporary files and caches.

All that said, it takes me just less than 10 minutes for a complete scan, and just less than 3 seconds to "fix" approx 30 usage track entries. That's on a Intel MB with Intel 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB memory, SATA drives, XP Home SP3 Operating system with Avast Home Edition AV system. (Time is with AV enabled, is less when disabled). Spybot is v1.6.1.38.

My C: drive (partition) is used virtually only for the operating system and applications themselves - the majority of data is stored on other partitions. The page file is on a second physical drive. So space used on the operating system partition is only around 6.5GB. Temporary files and caches are cleaned prior to scanning.

[Stallion_Duck]

Well, if you couldn't tell by now I am a complete novice. My computer has 3 drives which are altogether about 500GB and is running on Windows XP and when Spybot is scanning it says it is scanning 342,375 items. The virus I got it to help me with is called Win32/heur and I think that could be part of the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on making it faster or other ways to get rid of this virus?

Thanks,
Stallion Duck

[Greyfox]

Stallion_Duck,

If you believe the problem is a virus or spyware infection please read this.

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=1266

[Stallion_Duck]

Ok, thanks for the help. I stopped it early on running this time (once it had found a few of the infected files) then had it take care of those and now I've started it scanning again and it is going much much faster. I believe one of those infected files was the culprit. Spybot now seems to be finding everything at the rate it should.

Thanks,
Stallion_Duck

[md usa spybot fan]

Stallion Duck:


Well, if you couldn't tell by now I am a complete novice. …
It certainly doesn't sound like it!


… I stopped it early on running this time (once it had found a few of the infected files) then had it take care of those … I believe one of those infected files was the culprit. Spybot now seems to be finding everything at the rate it should ...
It sounds more like you developed a well thought out approach that others may be able benefit from.

Thank you for your insight (intuition).

Regards,
md usa spybot fan

[Stallion_Duck]

I didn't realize I was doing anything spectacular, haha. Well you're welcome.
I believe that I'm cleaner now but I have a feeling my anti's are missing something still.:sad: