Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[graz]

My Windows7 i5 laptop has had NIS since new and I've recently upgraded to the latest version.

But it has always had the problem that after leaving the machine idle for a short time, it stops responding.

I think this problem occurs when I've installed some new software, but I'm not 100% sure.

I have switched off the idle-time optimiser and that makes no difference. 

When it happens, I see a box at the bottom right of the screen saying "Norton Internet Security is currently performing background tasks while your computer is idle".  I can click the x on that box to hide it, but then nothing else responds.  I have to power it off by holding down the power key.

I have seen that some people have been able to fix this by running the Norton uninstall and re-install utility but I tried that and it made no difference.

I have just checked in the history and there aren't any Norton tasks showing as running in the time when the machine hung, although there was a message about background tasks running.

I'm generally very happy with NIS but if I can't resolve this I'll be changing to another product.

Any help much appreciated.

[yank Trojan Terminator]

Hi graz,

There are some tasks that after being stopped numerous times will continue to run until completion - even if the system is removed from idle.  One such task is the Idle Full System Scan.  It is sneaky about it also in that if you look in Norton Tasks it will tell you the Full System Scan is complete - when in fact it completed only a portion of it.

There are others that run until completeion if they have not run due to the laptop being on battery power, NIS being in silent mode etc.

I would suggest you put the laptop on AC power, let it go to idle and permit the background tasks to run to completion.  That should permit anything that needs to complete to finish and then you migt be able to tell from the history or the Norton Tasks which task it was that was casuing it.

Of course someone else may have another suggestion, but this will give us a starting point.

[graz]

Thanks for your suggestion. Sorry it's taken so long to reply.

I tried letting the background tasks finish (took an hour or two, I forget exactly now as it was a few weeks ago) but I only saw evidence of a scan having happened.

So to test this out on a "clean" NIS install, I've just used the Norton remove and re-install tool again and then also did a total uninstall of NIS via Control Panel in order to remove its history of what Norton Tasks had run and which had been cancelled etc.  Then I installed the latest version of NIS again.

To start with I thought the uninstall and reinstall had stopped the problem, as although Norton Tasks would start in the background, when I started to use the PC again, they  would show as stopping.

However, eventually the PC stopped responding again.

But I got fed up waiting for things to recover so I did power-off and on again.  Then I looked to see if there was any history on the Norton Tasks.  All of them now show as either complete or not run except for two:  Norton Insight and Insight Updates.  And both show a "yes" in the "Ran during idle" column.

If I restart Norton Insight manually (by clicking the play button in the Norton Tasks window) then within a minute or two, the machine pretty much stops responding.  But in NIS's history, the CPU and memory usage by Norton are very low.

I did manage to get Task Manager to run while the Norton Insight was running, and one of the ccSvcHst processes showed it was using 127 threads which seemed like a lot - but maybe that's not relevant.

I've switched off Insight Protection in case that makes any difference.

This is really frustrating. 

Can you suggest anything further?

Thanks

[peterweb Super Worm Eliminator · Accepted solution]

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graz wrote:

My Windows7 i5 laptop has had NIS since new and I've recently upgraded to the latest version.

But it has always had the problem that after leaving the machine idle for a short time, it stops responding.

.

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You say it has Always had this problem. Do you mean even before updating your NIS?

Do you or did you ever have another security program installed on this computer? If so was it fully removed with that program's removal utility?

It could also be a Windows problem. Is your Windows fully up to date? SP1?

There could also be an issue with your hard drive.

To check your hard disk, click on the Windows Start button. In the search box type CMD. Right click on cmd.exe and click on run as administrator. In the command prompt type "chkdsk c: /r /v"  without the quotes. A message will come up asking if you want to check the disk on the next restart. Answer 'Y'. Reboot and the check disk will run before Windows starts up. This check will check the file system as well as the physical disk surface. 

Please let us know if any of this helps.

[graz]

The problem has occurred for as long as I can remember.  There has never been any other security product on the machine - it came with a 60-day evaluation version of NIS when new, and I just bought a licence for it when that expired.

Windows is fully up to date - and has SP1.

I tried your suggestion about checking the disk, and it found and replaced some bad clusters in one of the Windows install files.

Since then, I've left the machine idle for about an hour and most Norton tasks have run but the machine is still responding ok.

I will monitor this for a week or two before I'm sure this is fixed, but it's looking very good so far.

Your help is very appreciated.

Thanks.

Graz

[graz]

I''ve had no further problems - so marking this as solved.

[peterweb Super Worm Eliminator]

Glad to hear you have things working again. 

We are here if you need us.