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Full scan is now going on 13+ hours, why so long?

Customer
So I started a full scan last night after installation (don't know why I didn't have it already, its been on all my PC's and laptops before) and it's still running, going on 13+ hours, which I think the timing is wrong because I started the scan around this time, anywhere from 1am-3am, so thats weird too.



Objects scanned so far: 387,000+

Objects found so far: 1



Can anyone tell me why this might be taking so long, I don't think it ever used to take me this long with any PC/laptop I've had. The scan time is obviously wrong, I know I started the scan sometime around this time last night, give or take an hour or two. Unless for some reason it stopped scanning and started again, would it do that if the windows xp users is logged off or if windows is on idle?





Note: Files on my computer aren't as much as an average computer, although because of my media there is a lot of hard drive storage taken up, on both drives.





Thanks,

-Rich
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Comments

33 comments

Date Votes
  • Customer
    It came to a stop just minutes before posting this post.



    Objects scanned: 394,163

    Objects Removed: 59 (all cookies, except; Win32.Exploit.DCom is an explout that targets a known vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows Remote Proceduer Calls (RPC).)



    Regardless, I would like to know why it took so long. -.-
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  • Customer
    really weired, it must be problem of your cpu or memory, check it out.
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  • Customer
    [quote name='adulti' post='126293' date='Apr 23 2011, 12:52 AM']really weired, it must be problem of your cpu or memory, check it out.[/quote]



    Any ideas on how to go about that?
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  • Customer
    [quote name='CeciliaB' post='126385' date='Apr 26 2011, 10:35 AM']Hi RichW,



    How old is your computer and how fast is it?

    Which Windows is installed?

    How much RAM memory is installed?

    Did the computer do anything else at the same time as the scan?

    Is another antivirus program installed?

    Does other hard disk activities take long time, for example chkdsk, defragmentation?



    All of the above might influence the scanning time.[/quote]





    My PC is a couple years old but I built it myself with high end (at that time) hardware.

    Windows XP

    2GB RAM

    Nothing was running during scan

    I have trend micro installed, it may or may not have been doing a scan at the same time, I don't think so though.

    I did a defrag a few days ago and probably haven't done one sine my last reformat, which might have been a few years ago, and it took pretty long.





    But there isn't much junk on my PC. I keep it pretty simple and clean.
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  • Support
    Hi RichW,



    How old is your computer and how fast is it?

    Which Windows is installed?

    How much RAM memory is installed?

    Did the computer do anything else at the same time as the scan?

    Is another antivirus program installed?

    Does other hard disk activities take long time, for example chkdsk, defragmentation?



    All of the above might influence the scanning time.
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  • Support
    Hi RichW,



    Many antivirus programs checks every file that is opened, read, written and/or closed by other programs. If Trend Micro does that with every file that Ad-Aware opens for scanning it means that every file in the computer is scanned both by Trend Micro (maybe several times) and by Ad-Aware. That will certainly take long time.



    A couple of years ago, I noticed in my own computer that the anti-malware program took 8 minutes to scan with the antivirus program running but only 2 minutes if I turned off the antivirus program first.
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  • Customer
    [quote name='CeciliaB' post='126411' date='Apr 27 2011, 06:35 AM']If you minimize or close the user interface of Ad-Aware after starting the scan, Ad-Aware will enter "idle mode scan" and it will only scan files when the computer isn't doing anything else and use as little CPU and memory as possible. This is very useful if you want to do other things with the computer during the scan but, of course, gives longer scan times.[/quote]





    This is definitely the case. I had it minimized the whole time.



    Thanks.
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  • Support
    Are you using Ad-Aware version 9.03 or 9.04? Earlier versions had more problems with cooperation with other antivirus programs.



    If you minimize or close the user interface of Ad-Aware after starting the scan, Ad-Aware will enter "idle mode scan" and it will only scan files when the computer isn't doing anything else and use as little CPU and memory as possible. This is very useful if you want to do other things with the computer during the scan but, of course, gives longer scan times.



    Ad-Aware also has a feature called sandbox, and certain files will be executed in the sandbox, which is more time consuming than only checking simple definitions as most antivirus programs do.
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  • Customer
    Have you retried scanning? See if this time it also takes that long.



    There are articles out there on how to reset your clock, maybe those help. 13hours is way too long unless you have hard drive with 500GB of files in it.



    Mike
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  • Customer
    [quote name='Mike Smith' post='126433' date='Apr 28 2011, 12:01 AM']Have you retried scanning? See if this time it also takes that long.



    There are articles out there on how to reset your clock, maybe those help. 13hours is way too long unless you have hard drive with 500GB of files in it.



    Mike[/quote]



    No I haven't retried scanning yet, but I'll make sure to do so once I'm on my desktop again. But I believe we figured out why it took so long; due to the program being minimized to my task bar.



    I do have a second hard drive full of movies, but I believe it was set not to be scanned, not sure. But I'll definitely check that, and then if possible; do a scan on just that hard drive to see how long it would take.



    Thanks for your two cents anyways, always appreciated.

    -Rich
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  • Customer
    I am experiencing the same issue. I give up after letting the process run for an extended period



    Additionally when I cold boot the PC & when I look at Task Manager I notice that AAWService is hogging CPU resources the vast majority of CPU in the Process tab. The lack of resources makes running any other program totally impossible for about 10-15 minutes. /sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />



    Any ideas on either would really be appreciated.
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  • Support
    Hi BriMac,



    Do you have another antivirusprogram or other security programs than Ad-Aware?

    Do you leave AVG open while scanning?
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  • Customer
    I got an HP6610f -- 750 hard drive, 4GB memory and 4-core. 636GBof 686GB free.



    I got free Ad-Aware 9.0.5.



    I keep my machine clean, going through Internet Options and disk cleaner, Ad-Aware Track Sweep and Quick Scans in Norton Online. I do this religiously. The malware and virus scans turn up nothing. The machine is clean.



    Full scans of only drive C are taking between 5 and 6 hours. That's ridiculous and I really, really hate it. I don't understand how electrons, going 186,292 miles/sec can take so long to do this.



    Either it's the Lavasoft program, or it's the programming in my machine. I believe it's not my machine.



    Wusup wit dis?
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  • Customer
    BTW, it scans under 200 thousand objects. If we use 5 hours for the scan time, that's 40 thousand objects per hour. I get more angry just thinking about it cuz I got things to do.



    Now, I just thought-a sumpin -- Norton Online prob'ly does an "Idle Time Scan" during the Ad-Aware scan, though I can't understand why the Norton thing interprets the Ad-Aware scan as "idle time." So, I'll try an Ad-Aware scan after I disengage Norton, and we'll see whether that helps. I can't imagine that it will, given the machine's configuration, but we'll see.
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  • Customer
    So, I disabled the Norton Online Anti-Virus thing, and the Ad-Aware full scan [b][size=6]STILL[/size][/b] took over 5 hours.
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  • Support
    Hi all,



    Did the update to version 9.0.6 improve the scanning time?
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  • Customer
    [quote name='CeciliaB' post='126876' date='May 19 2011, 11:10 AM']Hi all,



    Did the update to version 9.0.6 improve the scanning time?[/quote]



    I am having the same problem Adaware is taking 9 hours to scan, I have avg which I disabled during the scan.
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  • Support
    Hi cyb,



    How much space is occupied on your hard disk, how many files do you have?

    How old is your computer?

    Did you leave Ad-Aware open while scanning?

    Remember that Ad-Aware is both an antivirus program and an anti-malware program and it takes more time to do two things than just one (like a standard antivirus program).
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  • Customer
    [quote name='CeciliaB' post='126985' date='May 24 2011, 12:30 PM']Hi cyb,



    How much space is occupied on your hard disk, how many files do you have?

    How old is your computer?

    Did you leave Ad-Aware open while scanning?

    Remember that Ad-Aware is both an antivirus program and an anti-malware program and it takes more time to do two things than just one (like a standard antivirus program).[/quote]



    To be honest I forget how many files it scanned in the end, But I have a 500gb h/d which is about quarter full and yes i left it open while scanning.

    The pc is 1 year old full spec at the time of building
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  • Support
    Hi,



    Lavasoft has shorten the scan time a lot in version 9.5 for them who has a multi-core processor.
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  • Customer
    Hej!

    OK, WHY is it taking so long for a full scan?



    I had been using AdAware Free version(I don't remember which) for years and [b]i[/b]t[b] [u]was[/u][/b] working fine.



    My 'poor' computer has: AMD Athlon XP 1500+/1GB RAM/64GB HD & WinXP sp3 is up to date. Last month I "upgraded" to AAW 10 with Pro Security '30 day trial' version. I've read all the posts here & tried different suggestions, with no success in shortening the time for a 'Full Scan'. I have it scheduled for a 2AM daily start, and at 7AM it was still running!



    Since installing AAW10+ I've had too many irritating problems to list. As a grateful AAW user, I didn't uninstall the only AAW programs shown in my MS 'Add or Remove Programs': Ad-Aware Antivirus(10.1.211.3382) & Ad-Aware Browsing Protection(0.9.0.2) But I might



    I also have McAffee ViruScan Enterprise 7.1 installed [my mainstay AV protection for years]. And IObit Advanced Sytem Care(5.3.0.246) for a utility. Additionally, I recently installed Spybot-Search & Destroy 1.6.2



    Anyone have thoughts on WHY AAW SLOWS DOWN ???
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  • Customer
    Tak Ceci! I read DB's post & it refers primarily to 'real time' conflicts. I understand that & mitigated problems there. My question has to do with full scan running time being excessive.



    I've "turned off"/exited/ended/disabled all processes associated with McAfee VSE 7.1 & Spybot S&D before leaving my computer idle for the night. When AAW starts it's scheduled 'full scan' daily @ 2am, it runs for more than 5 hours with no other programs running! That is too long IMHO. If I 'wake up' my computer @ 7am, AAW is still scanning(?)



    I guess I'll just not do full scans daily. It seems to me AAW could find some way to track last full scans & improve scan times for repetitive ones.
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  • Support
    Hej bojonson,



    The reason is probably McAfee, or maybe more correct the combination of McAfee and Ad-Aware 10.

    Ad-Aware 10 has full real-time protection while Ad-Aware 9 Free only has a limited real-time protection, which usually works together with other antivirus programs. Even if LS Digger Barnes' explanation about possible conflicts with other security programs in the post [url="http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=30909&view=findpost&p=125582"]http://www.lavasofts...ndpost&p=125582[/url] is written for Ad-Aware 9 Pro, the principle is still the same. Since McAfee isn't particularly good, I think that the computer is better protected with Ad-Aware 10 than with McAfee.



    It is still possible to use Ad-Aware 9.6, if you prefer that, and it can be downloaded from FileHippo.



    For the future see the post [url="http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?/topic/32555-every-time-i-run-live-update-w-9x-the-program-says-unexpectly-needs-to-close/page__view__findpost__p__137027"]http://www.lavasofts...post__p__137027[/url] by LS Andy.
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  • Support
    You are welcome /smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



    You definitely don't need to run full scans daily, use Quick Scan instead, and if that finds something else than cookies then it's time for a Full Scan. I'm not sure but I think there is some kind of function that use information from previous scans to shorten the time.
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  • Customer
    well buddy, in the past, when things like that have happened to me, it was something that i managed to let past my firewall that ate up bandwidth/ memory. my suggestion is this, you run your scan again, if it continues to take that long you have something in there that anti-malware and anti-virus cannot detect (has to be if they wanna keep their jobs). instead of running out and buying new hardware first, try reinstalling a fresh copy of your operating system from your disk (if it doesnt correct it u can always by new hardware later).



    if you dont have a disk immediately copy your operating system from the partition its in to a disk, you never know when your hard drive will corrupt and you'll need a new one (saves u from having to buy a new operating system too). it takes me, cause i use to reinstall about once a year because of defragmentation that i couldn't get at (until i found a new program that defragments the operating system), about 2 hours to get from debugged hard drive (100% empty nothing on it) to up and running with security in place and work programs installed. updates take about another 2 hours since i'm running a 10 year old computer with xp pro on it (service packs are a b***h). usually that gave me back my speed, got rid of any problems the "company software" was unable to remove, while making it more affordable to run an already out of date computer. There were occaisions of bad hard drive sectors, "burned out" ram, and even a cpu failure (never had that happen again on any of my comps).
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  • Support

    Hi njall,

     

    Are you using Ad-Aware version 9?

    I wonder since this is the forum for that version and all answers in this topic is for that version.

     

    Do you have another antivirus program installed?

    Which antivirus program did you have before you installed Ad-Aware?

    Very long scan time can be observed when another antivirus program, or parts of it, is installed since that program interferes with the scan of Ad-Aware.

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  • Customer

    my scan on my computer has been going for 17 hours+ right now

     

    5 year old comp

    425 gb out of 500 gb filled

    Intel core i3 cpu 3,07 ghz

    4 gb ram

    Windows 7 64 bit

     

    newest version of ad aware free and for atleast 10 out for the 17 hours the scan havent been minimised

    the last 8 hours atleat might be more its only what i have noticed it has been working on c:/windows/temp/............. files

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  • Customer

    close to 24 hours now and still Windows temp files :S

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  • Customer

    ohh dint see this was an old version i was typing in

     

    but my current version is 10.5.3.4405

     

    dont have any other antivirus

     

    ¨but have had avg and might have had some McAfee at some point but never really used it so not sure if that is an older computer i had it on

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  • Customer

    since it took so long whit to so long whit the temp files i got rid of alot of em and found out that McAfee was actually on this computer so deleted that aswell full scan complet in 3 hours so problem fix

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