Slow SpyBot scan..??

Using a Vanilla Win XP (SP-2), Avast anti-virus, CCleaner, CWshredder, no problems, good connections. (Broadband.) I like Spybot, but the 'scans' take forever. At least 1 hour or more. (And if my screensaver kicks in, it seems to STOP.!) I have tried setting the screen saver to a higher time, but it still takes a LOONNGG time. Should I be setting up different parameters in 'expert' mode, rather than the standard scan.?? I have 512 Meg Ram., no computer problems..fast web surfing, minimal services running in background.? Is this normal? Any suggestions to speed up..(No, I cannot add more RAM..) Thanks.

What version of Spybot do you have?If you're not sure,open Spybot,click Help,then About.

I am using SpyBot S & D 1.6.0..(latest, as far as I know.) All versions I have used lately take a LONG time to scan.... Is this normal? Everything else is speeding along with no problems..

eeyore888,

You might like to say what the speed and type of CPU in your computer, also the size of the hard drive and how much spare space is left.

You can try clearing out your browser caches, and your temporary files, also defragging the drive can help. Fairly obviously it is best to do the scan with an absolute minimum of other software running, and the browser closed, but you probably already know that. I also turn off teatimer before I carry out the weekly scan.

What you can try is going into Spybot, and with it in Advanced mode, click on settings, then settings again, then scroll down through the settings screen until you find the System Start group. Click on "Run program once at next system startup", then exit Spybot and reboot. Spybot will start up early in the bootup sequence (once off setting). Compare the time taken to do the scan in comparison to the other scan times you have been getting.

You have not said what AV software you have, and some users have reported very significant reductions in Spybot scan times when their AV is disabled. Obviously you would only do this off line, and then re-enable the AV again after the scan.

Please post back and let us know whether some or any of the above has helped.

Using Win XP (SP-2)..Pentium III, 512 Meg RAM, only a 30 Gig. drive..using only 4 Gig. of drive. Plenty of room left. I turn off AV when scanning. (I use Avast AV')
Vanilla system..very little running in background. Was just curious why a scan takes so long, when all other surfing and functions are quite fast. The AV scans the entire system in less than 10 minutes..?? SpyBot well over 1 hour. Using latest version 1.6.0 Yes, I clear cache, use CCleaner, I even flush the DNS frequently..and defrag when needed..(temp files also emptied. I do NOT even use the 'tea-timer'.)

Please try running a scan in safe mode,then please post back and let me know if was any faster. :)
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

Well, I tried to install a fresh copy of S & D 1.6 to try and scan in safe mode, comparing to regular mode. Downloaded with all kinds of problems, could not scan..was getting an 'update' error...(could not scan or continue.) I give up. You can delete this thread. Unable to even do updates. Yes, I downloaded from the official SpyBot S & D website..

If you still have Spybot and are willing to continue,you could download the manual detection updates from here:
http://www.spybot.info/en/download/index.html