[open]scan Time Suddenly Much Longer

thefrasers
thefrasers
in General talk

I usually scan my PC alternate evenings (overnight). Until recently this took 6/7 hours and was finished when I looked again at the computer in the morning. On the other night I would back up my hard disk. However, the process now seems to take forever. It is never finished first thing in the morning, and once when I left it on it had got as far scanning for 13 hours with still no result. At this point I gave up and finished the process. I do not have a particularly large hard disk (200 G, with 90 G free) and I've carefully changed the scan so it doesn't look at an attached USB backup drive. I'm nervous of simply using the 'quick scans' since I'm not clear what is being missed. In any event, it seems silly that the basic scan cannot be run over a reasonable period for a comparatively normally sized hard drive. Does anyone know why it might be taking so long all of a sudden? I have not installed any major new software; simply the Nokia PC Suite for my mobile, and a Bluetooth utility. System information (to those who like that kind of thing) below.


OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition


Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600


OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation


System Name HUB


System Manufacturer NVIDIA


System Model AWRDACPI


System Type X86-based PC


Processor x86 Family 15 Model 63 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~2210 Mhz


BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 05/08/2005


SMBIOS Version 2.2


Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS


System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32


Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1


Locale United Kingdom


Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"


User Name HUB\Pete


Time Zone GMT Standard Time


Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB


Available Physical Memory 567.82 MB


Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB


Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB


Page File Space 2.40 GB


Page File C:\pagefile.sys


Cheers


Peter

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown

    Hi Peter,


    It could be that your operating system accrued quite a lot of temporary internet files over the time and BitDefender scans everything, in this way taking a long time. Did you try deleting the content of your TEMP folder in Windows and the content of Temporary Internet Files ?

  • thefrasers
    thefrasers
    Hi Peter,


    It could be that your operating system accrued quite a lot of temporary internet files over the time and BitDefender scans everything, in this way taking a long time. Did you try deleting the content of your TEMP folder in Windows and the content of Temporary Internet Files ?


    Ordinary temp internet files are flushed regularly but my C:\Documents and Settings\Pete\Local Settings\Temp folder was suddenly bloated by loads of DRMTEMP files. I've got rid of them and will attempt a scan again tonight - but where did they come from?

  • Unknown
    Unknown

    Hi again Pete,


    Those files are created by your operating system from day to day work, in order to speed up things (or so they say). It's like .... a dump area of the OS, that is being used now and then in case you are using the same files very often.


    However, it is recommended to keep an eye on that folder as it can get very big and .. slow down the system eventually. :)

  • thefrasers
    thefrasers
    Hi again Pete,


    Those files are created by your operating system from day to day work, in order to speed up things (or so they say). It's like .... a dump area of the OS, that is being used now and then in case you are using the same files very often.


    However, it is recommended to keep an eye on that folder as it can get very big and .. slow down the system eventually. :)


    Cleaned it, but no joy. Came in this morning after the process had been running for eight hours and still it was wittering on. Had a bizarre experience when I looked at the temp folder. It seemed (according to the properties file) to suddenly be 6 GB large. However, after I opened it, I found no new files. I closed it to check and suddenly it was was back to a much more manageable 1.7 MB. Had I imagined the original size? I have a suspicion that 'something' is going on here but I can't isolate the issue and I'm not really a computer expert (which is why I bought the scanning software in the first place). Can anyone think of any checks of I can perform?


    My greatest fear is that some kind of virus/malware has slipped in which is stopping the anti-virus software from working correctly, perhaps by generating rogue files!


    Regards,


    Peter

  • thefrasers
    thefrasers
    Cleaned it, but no joy. Came in this morning after the process had been running for eight hours and still it was wittering on. Had a bizarre experience when I looked at the temp folder. It seemed (according to the properties file) to suddenly be 6 GB large. However, after I opened it, I found no new files. I closed it to check and suddenly it was was back to a much more manageable 1.7 MB. Had I imagined the original size? I have a suspicion that 'something' is going on here but I can't isolate the issue and I'm not really a computer expert (which is why I bought the scanning software in the first place). Can anyone think of any checks of I can perform?


    My greatest fear is that some kind of virus/malware has slipped in which is stopping the anti-virus software from working correctly, perhaps by generating rogue files!


    Regards,


    Peter


    Tried another approach which was to run the 'quick scan' option. Not sure how this is different from the main scan but it didn't work either. Eight and a half hours later and still it is incomplete. Are there any log files etc that I can look at to see what is going on (assuming somebody can tell me how to interpret them)?

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited December 2008

    The path for log files is:


    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BitDefender\Desktop\Events


    and


    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BitDefender\Desktop\Profiles\Logs

  • thefrasers
    thefrasers
    The path for log files is:


    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BitDefender\Desktop\Events


    and


    C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BitDefender\Desktop\Profiles\Logs


    Thank you for this. However, the real problem for me is knowing how to interpret it. The log files are XML and I have no idea how to look at them. I still don't know why this is all taking so long, and more importantly why this has only become a problem recently. How can I did identify the problem? I am not exactly going to uninstall everything I've installed recently because I have no real idea when it started. In any event, I'm not aware of installing anything particularly problematic.

  • Unknown
    Unknown

    Uburex...


    I doubt there is a virus / malware on your computer. If your computer works just fine otherwise (except the scanning module), and you can't find anything suspicious it most likely means that either BD is causing some problems... either your hard disk has some physical errors.

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