Bitdefender may be causing my PC to slow down / freeze up

Clapton

hi all

I now think Bitdefender is the reason or big part of reason my PC is slowing down and even freezing up.

i read Archi dice's post about BD using up resources, and that prompted me to post this, though my issues may be different from his. his seems to be Bitdefenders resource use, where mine may be compatibility issues as well.(not sure really)

when i first got BD (bitdefender) it was working great, and i had no issues with my computers speed and functionality. but since march things have slowly grown progressively worse.

Symptoms now are as follows-

• when i first turn on my PC its sluggish, but after a hour or so it becomes even slower
• the longer the PC is turned on the worse it gets, programs start being difficult to open even BD sometimes wont open when i click on the widget.
• the more hours the PC stays left on the worse it gets to a point where the computer freezes up, and i cant even shut it off with windows start icon button lower left... i have to physically hold down the mechanical start button to shut off the PC...
• even if all i do is turn on the PC and walk away from it and dont use it, when i come back an hour or two later its slowed down and sometimes feezing up all by itself.
• it seems time related, the longer the PC stays on for , the slower and worse it gets.

it takes hours for BD to do a full system scan. yet the quick scan seems to function ok, it timed at ten munites, and the optimizer tool still takes ten seconds,,,that is when BD has not frozen up .

i have tried for a few weeks looking at other possibilities other than BD for the slow down, and have tried removing some unused programs as per BD sites info,,, and have tried removing old security programs..

removing old programs be they security or other i find is frustrating, because as you pointed out to Archi dice in his post, using the add/remove tool in windows or the uninstall prompt that comes with the programs still don't remove it all, they still leave stuff buried somewhere in your PC,,

I had once used a demo of malewarebytes, and removed it using its own uninstall function... only to find out by using treesizefree that it still had a folder in my pc with files in it...

on Bitdefender website i yesterday downloaded your tool "Autoruns" to view things that could be removed or stopped, but im afraid of removing things or shutting them off since i know nothing about some of the programs Autoruns listed and i may make matters worse.

and thats the problem me a none computer geek who doesnt know what these programs are or do , i can use treesize free, or your program "autoruns" to remove stuff or stop it from running, but its like putting a gun in the hands of a drunk blindfolded monkey, i just dont know what many of these programs are or do and i will probably mess things up more.

I like your suggestion to Archie about doing a reinstall of Bitdefender, i will try that, but unfortunately that is not just plug and play, hitting the uninstall button in BD does not remove all of BD as you pointed out to Archie,,, i will have to follow up that with the complicated processes you instructed archie to do , to totally remove all of BD files... what a pain...

gee why cant software makers put all the stuff in just one folder in one place so when we hit uninstall it actually does just that and uninstalls the whole thing at once and not leaves stuff laying hidden all over on our computers... gee wiz :(

i will try the reinstall of Bitdefender and see if that helps. if not next thing will be to wipe the PC and reinstall the windows back up disc, because their is no way a newbie like me is going to go thru all the files on a PC and try and figure out what can be removed or shut down without negatively impacting functionality of the entire system....

i wonder if possibly the issues are with the one click optimizer removing things it should not have removed, not that i would know what should stay and what should go, im not a programmer, so when the optimizer asks i just hit the optimize button and hope it knows what its doing.

also the firewall stops alot of things, and i wonder if they should of been allowed,,, when i first got bitdefender the firewall asked me if i wanted to block some program with a odd name so i hit block,,i later found out that program was a bitdefender program..lol.. so this could be a part of my issues here too. so many programs with weird names i have no idea what to block or not,,, maybe some need to access the net to keep my pc functioning well. ???

my system is -

windows 7 home premium

service pack 1

dell, inspiron n7110

intel core i7-2670

[email protected] 2.20 ghz

ram 8gb

64bit operating system

Are any other new Bitdefender users noticing time related slow down issues too ?,, the longer your pc is on the slower it gets ?

i used to use other brand of security software for years never had this conflict with the other software on my PC. the only difference now seems to be since installing Bitdefender.

thanks for any advice, or links to any info i can use.

cheers.

Gjoksi

Hello.

Here is a screenshot from my laptop's task manager, that i've just got:

Laptop: Asus X551CA

Purchased: April 25, 2014

Specs: Intel Core i3-3217U 1.8GHz, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 4GB DDR3

The only hardware change i made: a few years ago switched from 500GB HDD to 120GB SATA-III SSD

On August 22, 2020 switched by clean install from Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit to Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit.

I'm a Bitdefender Total Security user since 2017.

Since then, Bitdefender never had any impact on the performance of my laptop.

As for the full system scan, from my personal experience, the System Scan is 30 - 50 files per second and it takes 25 - 30 minutes to scan the whole system of 95 GB, including the Windows files, program files, data files (documents, pistures, videos) etc.

To do that, Open your Bitdefender program, go to Protection -> Antivirus -> Open -> Scans -> System Scan, click on the three dots ••• button on the right next to System Scan, click on "Edit", change the "Scan task priority" to "High", click "Next" and "Save".

Also, do the same steps for "Quick Scan", change the "Scan task priority" to "High".

For uninstalling the Bitdefender program, use the Uninstall Tool:

https://www.bitdefender.com/links/uninstall_consumer_paid.html

After the uninstall process is done, you could use other programs (like CCleaner, Glary Utilities, etc.) to scan the system for any leftovers from Bitdefender (like files, registry keys, ets.) and finally do a system restart.

Regards.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Clapton and thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us.

While there are several factors that can contribute to a slowdown of the machine, more information is needed to find the root cause. Depending on the system configuration and the active applications, the background scan might affect the computer performance, for example. The system configuration and the applications differ from one computer to another, yet the mechanism is the same: there are applications or system processes that continuously access the resources and Bitdefender monitors this activity. After installing a security software, the computer will slightly slow down, which to a certain degree is normal.

However, if you notice a significant slowdown after installing your Bitdefender protection, there are a couple of things to check:

1. Running two security solutions will cause system slowdowns and conflicts between them. This might lead into apps being blocked without notice/intention. Having more than one security solution installed on the same PC will also cause incompatibility issues, and the normal action of either one of them is not guaranteed. This is why we recommend our users to remove any other antivirus programs they may use before installing Bitdefender.
2. If your machine/operating system does not meet the system requirements, the computer will become sluggish, especially when multiple applications are running at the same time.
3. Any computer has programs or applications that are not used. And many unwanted programs run in the background, taking up disk space and memory. If you do not use a program, uninstall it. This is also valid for any other pre-installed software or trial software you forgot to remove.
4. There could be too many invalid registry keys left in your Windows Registry or your hard disk drives are too fragmented. Cleaning the Windows Registry can improve the performance of your system. Also, file fragmentation slows down file access and decreases system performance. Running the Disk Defragmenter can improve the performance of your system. You can find the steps to run Disk Defragmenter in this article. Note: If you suspect a program or an application to be an essential part of your operating system, do not remove it and contact Bitdefender Technical Support for assistance.
5. Last but not least, your system speed and its general behavior can also be affected by malware. Spyware, viruses, Trojans, and adware all take a toll on your computer’s performance. Make sure to scan your system periodically, at least once a week. It is recommended to use the Bitdefender System Scan because it scans for all types of malware threatening the security of your system.

To start the System Scan, follow these steps:

• open the Bitdefender window

• access System Scan

• follow the wizard steps

In regards to scanning, the speed of a System Scan depends on many factors such as system specifications, large volumes of data, the computer resources are in use by another software, it’s the first scan since installing Bitdefender and, most importantly, the number of archives & over-compressed files/backups. With every system scan, Bitdefender will index the files that have already been scanned and the scan time will greatly decrease.

To speed up a System Scan, if system resources are not a concern, the following solution may be considered: run the scan in high priority mode. This will instruct Bitdefender to compete for system resources on equal terms to other programs and decrease the time needed for the scan process to finish.

1. Click Protection on the navigation menu on the Bitdefender interface.

2. In the Antivirus panel, click Open.

3. Click the ••• button next to System Scan, then choose Edit.

4. In the Manage Scans window, use the drop-down menu to change Scan task priority from Low to High.

5. Click Next, then click Save.

6. Press Run Scan and wait for the System Scan to finish.

From my point of view and in this particular scenario, I think the first step would be to upgrade the operating system and install Windows 10. You will definitely see an improvement in performance. Although Windows 7 is still supported, the device will perform better with an antivirus paired with a newer Windows version.

This is also recommended because Bitdefender will continue to provide antimalware support to Windows 7 users only until January 14th, 2023. As technologies and threats evolve, Bitdefender continues to proactively develop and shape its solution set. The resulting new solutions and feature modifications often lead to a need to discontinue older software revisions and products. More information is available at the link below:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/32549/

Best regards

Clapton

hi and thank you to both of you for the advice.

i did a scan last knight but fell asleep with the PC on, ,,,results of BD's log file are as follows

Detailed Scan Summary

Basic

• all things = 0 (no infections, suspicious, or resolved items, found etc etc...)

Advanced

• scan time = 05:06:02
• scanned items = 1429763
• files per second = 77
• skipped items = 51506
• password protected = 8
• scanned archives = 392
• scanned boot sectors = 31
• scanned processes = 4014
• scanned registry keys = 10749
• all other items on the advanced log list were = 0

I did have the priority settings on High for both full scan and quick scan ....

Gjoksi awesome thanks for your task manager results, i am comparing yours and mine,,,very interesting... at this moment im getting this reading in my task manager

Memory(private working set)

• bdservicehost = .............................................401,620 k
• bdservicehost= .................................................20,036 k
• Bitdefender Agent = ...........................................4,316 k
• Bitdefender agent = .........................................14,336 k
• Bitdefender Main Interface = .......................190,592 k
• Bitdefender Network OS Helper Process = ......9,824 k
• Bitdefender redliine update = ............................6,440 k
• Bitdefender redline update = .............................2,360 k
• Bitdefender Update service =.......................... 12,728 k
• Bitdefender Vpn App = .......................................9,196 k
• Bitdefender Vpn Service =............................... 30,308 k
• Bitdefender Wallet Agent = ..............................12,272 k

CPU

• at the moment my task manager shows all bitdefener cpu usage = 0

curious that some things above in my task manager list like "bdservicehost", "Agent" and "redline" have two of each,,, is that normal ?

Gjoksi its seems my results are not too far off yours, leaves me to further think that maybe its some software that starts up in the background later that is maybe conflicting and maybe that software is not on at that moment ?

Alexandru you may be right about windows 10 upgrade (you probably are 😥 )... but i think i might like to spend the money (when i get some extra money ) towards a new pc that comes with windows ten already installed, and maybe move my bitdefender over to the new computer, and just use a basic free antivirus on this older Dell computer when that happens..

i did a DNS flush last night as i read on your site in a bitdefender blog on how to reduce packet loss while gaming online , went online to find out how to do it,, wonder if that helped improve things today...so far things are not freezing up, and i also did a BD update too .

for now i will try to remedy the present situation with this older laptop ... i will keep looking for programs that i am 100 percent sure i know what they are(like things i installed myself over the years) and remove them and see if that resolves the possibility of a software conflict . i wont touch anything if i dont recognize its name or if it looks like its system related...fingers crossed little by little chip away at it and see if things get better :)

thanks to you's both for the help , especially Gjoksi for showing me what a normal task manager BD result should look like that was helpful for comparison thanks.

i have to go now, ,,, will check back soon as i can and let you know how its working.

edit note ... also before i go it just occurred to ask,, regarding conflict between security software programs running at same time... does Windows Firewall and Defender software automatically shut off or stop once we install Bitdefender or do we have to go in and do that ourselfs ????

Scott

Hi @Clapton

Yes, on install, BD should disable Windows security in place of its own. But I always like to check, just to be sure :)

Could you post a reply, please, so you can get to 10 comments and hopefully get to level 2, so you get some of your fantastic music videos posted :) :)

Flexx

Kindly also have a look at below stated links:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/31856/

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/3766/

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Clapton,

Thank you for the insightful and comprehensive reply. I really hope things get better and I'm glad if the information found here was helpful.

Cheers

Clapton

Quote - scott ..... "Could you post a reply, please, so you can get to 10 comments and hopefully get to level 2, so you get some of your fantastic music videos posted :) :) "

sure scott , will do :)

Scott

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/313249#Comment_313249

You're now good to go :)

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/313208#Comment_313208

Clapton

thank you mrmirakhur

i clicked your links, will copy their info into my notepad so i can refer to them... thanks :)