Kaspersky was burning my laptop!!!
By getpaidsz
@getpaidsz (180)
Italy
March 19, 2010 2:43pm CST
Hi all,
I was a NOD32 fan since it came out. I knew that Kaspersky is also a respected powerful AV. But my experiences showed that it is a bit aggressive and not user friendly and uses system resources more than NOD32. Since one year ago I encountered an installation problem which forced me to use KIS instead of ESET Nod32. I got familiar with KIS2010 and was using it till now with satisfaction. 2-3 months ago I found that sometimes my CPU usage reaches 100% and my laptop become really slow so that I should finally do a hot reset. It became worse and worse, happening after a 5 min web surfing.
CPU fan was continuously working, laptop heated up, and even sometimes automatically shut down to prevent hardware damage. I didn't want to accept that it is my AVs fault. But it was. Kaspersky was burning out my poor laptop!
Now I changed my AV back to ESET Smart Security. everything is OK, with a CPU usage less than 10%.
I'm worried about people who may loose their PC because they can't find the guilty. I don't want to say which AV is better here. But if you have such problem, before checking other programs like me (firefox, perfect disk, side bar, etc), check your Kaspersky.
4 responses
@blogsblog (81)
• Portugal
23 Mar 10
the problem is not your software it is your hardware.
Apparently your system is heating too much and that can be caused by the wear (and tear) of your fans. As time goes by the fans won't be able to cool the hardware as efficiently as they could in the beginning. I once had a laptop that could no longer work for more than 5 minutes if it wasn't lying upside down. This would allow the base not to overheat and provide better air flow.
@getpaidsz (180)
• Italy
23 Mar 10
Thank you for your comment blogblog. My laptop is just one year old. Do you think the problem is caused by the fan? Maybe it is both the software and the hardware. I was monitoring my CPU usage and it was on 100% for a long time making CPU fan to work on maximum speed. It should be because of Kaspersky (since I changed it to ESET the problem is gone more or less) or the vista itself and its CPU and software management.
@blogsblog (81)
• Portugal
23 Mar 10
the software shouldn't load the cpu 100% for a long time, but even if it does the cooling system should/must be able to handle it. of course laptops are harder to cool. If you're familiar with hardware you could try opening the laptop and clean the fans or try to get a better cooler for your laptop. can't really help you choose a cooler for a laptop as my experience is for desktops only but i think if its possible you can find the info you want on the web.
You can also try another approach: underclock the cpu. this will naturally make your pc slower but on the other hand cooler.
@stormragetz (567)
• Singapore
20 Mar 10
Wow, that's the first time I heard a laptop shutting down because the antivirus is taking up too much resources!
@getpaidsz (180)
• Italy
20 Mar 10
It was strange for me at the beginning. I started to check my FireFox first. Then some other installed running programs. I have vista on my Laptop, so I became suspicious about the operating system itself. In task manager I ticked "show processes from all users". And finally I uninstalled KIS.
If any program use 100% of your CPU for a long time, clearly your system will start to heat up. The fan will work at the maximum power and if it couldn't cool CPU down, the system will automatically switched off to prevent physical damage.
My laptop is a Dell latitude D830. Today my CPU usage is below 20% using ESET. But the fan started working again, not as before though. Maybe I have some other software/hardware problem as well.
@getpaidsz (180)
• Italy
19 Mar 10
I didn't use Avast before and don't know about the pre-boot options. But it is not and was not a top ranked AV in the international investigations. Maybe I'm wrong; but do you think that options are interesting enough to replace ESET powerful AV with Avast?
@trruk1 (1028)
• United States
19 Mar 10
Kaspersky has a good reputation but I have not used it. I use McAfee and I like it a lot. It is not user-friendly like some of the others. To get the full benefit of what it can do, you must manually configure it. The only real downside I have found with it is that when it is downloading and installing an update it takes over everything. Bandwidth, CPU, all of it. All I can do is wait a couple of minutes for it to finish.
@getpaidsz (180)
• Italy
20 Mar 10
Yes, but it will take just two minutes. and it will not kill your laptop as in my case!
McAfee is a good AV and one of the first AVs. However, I don't really believe it. Let me tell you how I choose the best AV personally in addition to the competition reports. I'm working in a university. It is always easy to find some beautiful viruses somewhere on some of PCs. Particularly I can find some new viruses on flash disks. Then I try submitting them to virustotal.com. This is a great multi anti virus system which scans your submitted file with more than 40 updated AV. Then you can see which one detect it and which one doesn't. Also you can check the false detections by submitting a clean file (e.g. a packed or protected file).
Maybe then you will decide to try some other AV.
Thank you for commenting trruk1.
