Is This Performance Normal?

I have recently bought & installed BitDefender AntiVirus Plus 2012. This is a new product for me. It received quite good reviews. I was not surprised that the default settings had my computer sluggish. I have been trolling this forum looking for ways to trade off antivirus function with computer speed. However I just ran an internet speed test (Xfinity Speed Test). WOW! Latency increased by over a factor of 20; download speed nearly halved and upload speed decreased by a factor of four.

Gad, does this product require this level of degraded computer performance or is there a solution? Hers hoping.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

nikki605

Welcome to the forum.

Give us some specs on your PC - CPU type & speed, amount of RAM, which Windows OS & architecture? Are you running wired or wireless?

Which browser & version are you using?

What antivirus did you have before BDAV 2012? Did you uninstall it? By what method? Many slowdown problems come down to conflicts with other security programs or leftover pieces of other security programs.

I am using IE9 on an Intel i7 lenovo ThinkPad T410 with 4GB RAM. My internet connection is 25/15Mbps and this is my typical speed & ping results over a wired connection to my router:

Awaiting your reply,

EDIT: I just tried the Xfinity speed test and got these results:

Robert Kennedy

Thank you for your interest. Here is my system and browser information.

micronpc

Intel 4 CPU 2.53 GHz

1 GB of RAM

MS WinXP Professional

version 2002

Service Pack 3

This computer is a ethernet connection to a Linksys Router

Browser is IE 8.0.6001.18702

Previous security package was Comodo Internet Security which I removed using the Comodo forum's "Uninstaller Tool v0.3b" It certainly appeared to remove it all.

Wow you have one very impressive pipe!! My advertised value is 12 Mb/sec. I just ran the speedtest.net test and got a 292 msec ping, 4.98 Mb/sec download, and 0.9 Mb/sec upload. the server was Jacksonville. I am located in St Augustine. For comparison my previous ping length was 11 ms, approximately 9 Mb/sec up and 1.6 Mb/sec down.

Regards

BobK

Welcome to the forum.

Give us some specs on your PC - CPU type & speed, amount of RAM, which Windows OS & architecture? Are you running wired or wireless?

Which browser & version are you using?

What antivirus did you have before BDAV 2012? Did you uninstall it? By what method? Many slowdown problems come down to conflicts with other security programs or leftover pieces of other security programs.

I am using IE9 on an Intel i7 lenovo ThinkPad T410 with 4GB RAM. My internet connection is 25/15Mbps and this is my typical speed & ping results over a wired connection to my router:

Awaiting your reply,

EDIT: I just tried the Xfinity speed test and got these results:

nikki605

I retested both speed test sites to their Jacksonville servers (from Tampa) and received similar results to the ones I previously posted.

With BDAV 2012 are you using the Windows Firewall or a 3rd party firewall?

And, just to be sure, you have no other security program(s) installed - antivirus, antimalware, tuneup utilities, etc. installed?

To try and narrow down the cause, I would ask that you disable the following BD modules one at a time and test in between to see if one or more particular module is causing the problem:

Auto Pilot

Auto Scan

Antiphishing

Auto Update

Network Map (if you enabled it)

Safego (if activated)

Antivirus

On-access scanning
Active virus control
Vulnerability Monitor (and Monitored Items)

Privacy Control

Antiphishing (each Toolbar Function & web browser Protection)

Post back with your results.

Regards,

Robert Kennedy

I have checked both "All Programs" and "Add or Remove Programs" and found only Windows Defender as another security program installed. I also verified that the only firewall is the Windows firewall installed. That was the easy part

I next repeatedly tested the internet speed (speedtest.net) with all the BitDefender AntiVirus 2012 Plus functions "on" and then "off." The "off" conditions were as you prescribed and the "on" conditions were the default values. I could never get a consistent pair of results.

Because I could never turn the AntiVirus "off" and obtain internet speed values that I once had, it is difficult for me to blame the BitDefender product for the degrade. Something else is likely the problem. I have three other computers on this network and none of them have a latency measure over 15 ms while this machine has values that vary from 41 ms to 182 ms.

I need to see what are the other possible causes of this problem. Thank you for the suggested tests. I would, of course, appreciate any other suggestions you might have.

BobK

I retested both speed test sites to their Jacksonville servers (from Tampa) and received similar results to the ones I previously posted.

With BDAV 2012 are you using the Windows Firewall or a 3rd party firewall?

And, just to be sure, you have no other security program(s) installed - antivirus, antimalware, tuneup utilities, etc. installed?

To try and narrow down the cause, I would ask that you disable the following BD modules one at a time and test in between to see if one or more particular module is causing the problem:

Auto Pilot

Auto Scan

Antiphishing

Auto Update

Network Map (if you enabled it)

Safego (if activated)

Antivirus

On-access scanning

Active virus control

Vulnerability Monitor (and Monitored Items)

Privacy Control

Antiphishing (each Toolbar Function & web browser Protection)

Post back with your results.

Regards,

nikki605

With BDAV it is OK to run with the Windows Firewall enabled since BDAV does not have it's own firewall. That is how my laptop is set up.

However, Windows Defender MUST be disabled as described here so please verify that it is disabled. I don't even have Windows Defender installed on my WinXP system.

Finally, what did you mean by, "Because I could never turn the AntiVirus "off"? Are you saying that there was a BD option switch or checkbox that wouldn't change to the disabled state? Which specific option on which BD screen?

You could always try uninstalling BDAV 2012 and then run the speed tests. If you want to do that let me know and I can guide you through the steps. If the speed test results are still bad with BDAV uninstalled, it could be the settings in your network adapter.

Regards,

Robert Kennedy

Sorry for the poor wording. What I meant was that when I turned "off" all of the antivirus functions my internet speed values did not consistently improve. If the BDAV was causing the problem I would expect consistent improvement when I turned it's functions 'off." That did not happen.

I am working at disabling Windows Defender. The url = http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows...ender-on-or-off does not match my tools => options view. I just found that url = http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows...ction-on-or-off does appear to match what I see. I will next see if disabling that way makes a difference.

Because the other three computers on my network all have much smaller latency values your suggestions that the problem could be in the Network Interface Card (NIC) is a good one. However I recall an earlier lower value. Unfortunately I did not properly document the results. In any case I will next try with Windows Defender disabled. As a final step I would like to uninstall BDAV and repeat the speedtest.net. Thank you for your patience through all this!

With BDAV it is OK to run with the Windows Firewall enabled since BDAV does not have it's own firewall. That is how my laptop is set up.

However, Windows Defender MUST be disabled as described here so please verify that it is disabled. I don't even have Windows Defender installed on my WinXP system.

Finally, what did you mean by, "Because I could never turn the AntiVirus "off"? Are you saying that there was a BD option switch or checkbox that wouldn't change to the disabled state? Which specific option on which BD screen?

You could always try uninstalling BDAV 2012 and then run the speed tests. If you want to do that let me know and I can guide you through the steps. If the speed test results are still bad with BDAV uninstalled, it could be the settings in your network adapter.

Regards,

nikki605

No problem. You can actually uninstall Windows Defender through Windows Control Panel-->Add/Remove Programs. You don't even need it installed as long as you have BD. It's not a standard part of WinXP so it must have been installed separately. You can always re-install it later.

Let me know if you want to try uninstalling BD and I'll give you the safest steps to follow.

As a side note, do you by any chance have a utility program called CCleaner by Piriform installed?

Awaiting your reply,

Robert Kennedy

I have now disabled Windows Defender. I rechecked the speedtest.net and saw no significant change.

I do not have CCleaner but have heard good reviews. Actually I was thinking about trying some kind or registry cleaner because I do feel that there could be something amiss in this computer. I will try CCleaner next. I would then like to uninstall and reinstall BDAV. So I would appreciate you giving me the safest steps to follow.

No problem. You can actually uninstall Windows Defender through Windows Control Panel-->Add/Remove Programs. You don't even need it installed as long as you have BD. It's not a standard part of WinXP so it must have been installed separately. You can always re-install it later.

Let me know if you want to try uninstalling BD and I'll give you the safest steps to follow.

As a side note, do you by any chance have a utility program called CCleaner by Piriform installed?

Awaiting your reply,

nikki605

I have had personal success with this process:

1. Download the BD Uninstall Tool and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the uninstaller.

3. When the Uninstall Tool completes, reboot the PC (very important).

4. At this point, I would try some of the speed tests to see if there was still a problem or not. If there is still a speed/latency problem, I would trouble shoot that first before proceeding with anything else.

Once you have resolved the speed/latency issue, install & run CCleaner and proceed with re-installing BDAV 2012:

1. Download the latest version of CCleaner and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the installer. Install using the program defaults. At some point during the installation, a screen may appear asking if you want to install the free Google Chrome browser. This choice is up to you, but I uncheck the boxes and do not install Google Chrome.

3. When the installation completes (it is not necessary to reboot the PC) start CCleaner (make sure all application programs are closed including all web browser windows). It will open with the Cleaner tab on the left selected. Leave the check boxes set to their defaults. Click on the Run Cleaner button.

4. If you want to clean the Windows Registry, it carries some risk and I cannot offer you any support here if something should go wrong. Deleting necessary entries in the Registry could leave your PC inoperable.

5. Click on the Registry tab on the left, then click on the Scan for Issues button. A list of Registry entries to be deleted will be displayed.

6. If you want to delete the entries, click on the Fix selected issues... button.

7. You will be prompted if you want to backup changes to the Registry. I strongly recommend that you select Yes.

At this point I would try running as many programs as you can to make sure they all still work properly.

To re-install BDAV 2012:

1. Download a fresh copy of BDAV 2012 32-bit and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the installer.

3. Follow the on-screen prompts.

Good luck,

Robert Kennedy

Thank you much for the detailed steps. I went though the steps this morning. As usual I was surprised by the results. Before and after each step I would do a speedtest.net.

After uninstalling BDAV 2012 my upload speed increased by a factor of 750%. Download speed increased by only 20%, but I think that is limited by an old NIC. Other wireless connected computers on the network have speeds 3 to 5 times faster than this computer. Pulse length (latency) did not change. These changes in internet speed did not occur when I disabled all BDAV functions but only after I uninstalled it. That surprised me.

Next I ran CCleaner "cleaner" and the pulse length went from 43 ms to 10 ms which matches all the other computers on the network. Again I was surprised at the significant latency improvement obtained by deleting some file. I wish I knew what it was. I have not messed with the registry cleaner.

At this point I am hesitent to reload BDAV 2012. Thanks again for the help

I have had personal success with this process:

1. Download the BD Uninstall Tool and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the uninstaller.

3. When the Uninstall Tool completes, reboot the PC (very important).

4. At this point, I would try some of the speed tests to see if there was still a problem or not. If there is still a speed/latency problem, I would trouble shoot that first before proceeding with anything else.

Once you have resolved the speed/latency issue, install & run CCleaner and proceed with re-installing BDAV 2012:

1. Download the latest version of CCleaner and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the installer. Install using the program defaults. At some point during the installation, a screen may appear asking if you want to install the free Google Chrome browser. This choice is up to you, but I uncheck the boxes and do not install Google Chrome.

3. When the installation completes (it is not necessary to reboot the PC) start CCleaner (make sure all application programs are closed including all web browser windows). It will open with the Cleaner tab on the left selected. Leave the check boxes set to their defaults. Click on the Run Cleaner button.

4. If you want to clean the Windows Registry, it carries some risk and I cannot offer you any support here if something should go wrong. Deleting necessary entries in the Registry could leave your PC inoperable.

5. Click on the Registry tab on the left, then click on the Scan for Issues button. A list of Registry entries to be deleted will be displayed.

6. If you want to delete the entries, click on the Fix selected issues... button.

7. You will be prompted if you want to backup changes to the Registry. I strongly recommend that you select Yes.

At this point I would try running as many programs as you can to make sure they all still work properly.

To re-install BDAV 2012:

1. Download a fresh copy of BDAV 2012 32-bit and save it to your PC.

2. Navigate to the saved file and double-click it to run the installer.

3. Follow the on-screen prompts.

Good luck,

nikki605

Thanks for your detailed testing results. I understand your concerns. Now that you have a "new benchmark" for speed test results, I would suggest that you go ahead and re-install BD 2012 and compare the results. If the speed test results show a drop you have the choice to continue troubleshooting or uninstalling BD 2012.

Up to you.

Regards,

Chimel

The slow Internet issue is for all 2012 products, not just BDAV, and is already discussed in the General forum:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=28622

Better close this one unless it is a different specific issue.

nikki605

The slow Internet issue is for all 2012 products, not just BDAV, and is already discussed in the General forum:

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?showtopic=28622

Better close this one unless it is a different specific issue.

As you can see from my speed test results that I posted earlier, I do not have a speed download or upload problem. I acknowledge the issue you referenced in the topic link, but it doesn't affect all users.

Regards,

Chimel

I agree, and never said it affected all users, only that both threads look like they're the same issue.

Your high speed reports on both threads seem to reinforce the similarities.

All that interests me is to see this issue solved, I have been a mod already, not looking for another mod job! ^-^

rootkit

Sorry for the delayed reply.

The internet slowdown issue was resolved in .31

http://forum.bitdefender.com/index.php?sho...st&p=121756

Thank you.