HIGH HDD I/O and no option to DISABLE Idle Time Scan in NAV2012..?!?!?

2 main problems with Norton AntiVirus 2012

 

I've already report this problem 2 times in this community forum... and guess what..? no solution until now... Everytime system starts from boot-up until idle... Norton folder directory always get the highest rate of I/O modified file and still running about 5 - 10 minutes, make my HDD I/O monitor raise up and I can't do anything smoothly after it's done...

 

Before ask me anything, I will provide any common information for you guys...

- security software in my system is only Norton AntiVirus 2012 and Comodo Firewall,

- all of my softwares include Norton and Comodo already upgraded and updated to the latest version,

- I don't need a full system scan, because I know what I'm doing for my system (do not consider me as newbie here),

- the only full system scan I performed when upgraded to Norton AntiVirus 2012,

- my system is online for almost 24 hours and always updated automatically,

- my system backed up using Macrium Reflect every 1:00 AM automatically,

- need any other information? just ask me...

 

here's the screenshots:

2011-10-10_091301.jpg

2011-10-10_091403.jpg

2011-10-10_091442.jpg

 

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And now for the 2nd BIG problem

 

Is there any way to DISABLE Idle Time Scan in Norton AntiVirus 2012..?? I can't find it anywhere in Norton Settings...

 

Everytime I back after leave my notebook or wake up in the morning, I always saw Norton Notification which is the Idle Scan Completed. I DON'T NEED THIS..!! This will make my hardware spin up in the middle of night even I didn't use it...!!!

 

I can't find any options or configuration as a solution for this problem... And I get surprised, it's look like the Symantec Developer is REMOVED IT PERMANENTLY in 2012 version for good..??!!!??!?!?

 

Norton-AntiVirus-ITS-DSB.jpg

 

2011-11-27_103637.jpg

 

Need my notebook spesification..?? Here you go...

Intel Core-i7 720QM, 2x 4GB DDR3 VenomRX, Hitachi 500GB 5400rpm, NVIDIA GT240M

 

Security software overview:

- Norton AntiVirus 2012 is the only antivirus installed in my system,

- Comodo Firewall is the only firewall software in my system (absolutely Windows Firewall is DISABLED),

- No bloatware installed, no crapware installed, no useless toolbar installed and I only use Firefox portable,

- Some folders like installed game directory, downloaded content folder, portable softwares folder is added to exception list,

- need anything else? just ask...

 

Note: sorry if my English is not great...

 

Great thanks if anyone can help verify my problems...

Hi tridentcore,

 

I can answer the Idle Quick Scan question for you.  Unfortunately, there is no method of turning off the Idle Quick Scan in either NAV 2011 or NAV 2012.  This scan runs after your program receives new virus definitions, for the purpose of looking for any malware that may have been undetectable prior to the release of the newest signature update.  As such the scan is considered a high priority security function and cannot be disabled.  The "Idle Time Scan" setting in NAV 2011 actually only configured the Idle Full System Scan, not the Quick Scan, so the name of the setting was changed in NAV 2012 to "Full System Scan" for clarity. 

 

 

Hi tridentcore:

 

Let me just add to SendOfJive's post that Idle Time Scan toast [slideout] notifications have been a nuisance, but Symantec is actively working to correct this with an update, from what I understand. This should improve your overall NAV 2012 experience.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Atomic_Blast :)

so in the end there's no solution for this kind of problem right..??

I just want it to be turned off so my Hard Drive no need to always spin when in idle state...

 

And the High HDD I/O is happened again just now... What the h*ll is Norton do...???

 

2011-12-03_165814.jpg

It's the normal behaviour. What is not normal is that it should cripple your system. I have the same I/O activity, especially after boot, but it doesn't affect the performance of my computer at all.

NORMAL BEHAVIOUR..??? Doing something that I didn't even need it..???

And make my hard drive spin up when I didn't do anything??? I take that as ABNORMAL...

I didn't see any solution so far in this thread or all of this forum...

So in the end Norton AntiVirus 2012, DOESN"T HAVE ANY option to SWITCH ON/OFF button to DEACTIVATE IDLE TIME SCAN..

I know all about my notebook, even all softwares that is installed all this years...

I think I must endure this for an year until Norton AntiVirus 2013...

If you are not satisfied with the way the product works, you should probably consider not using it, and switch to a solution that fit your needs.

Hi tridentcore:

 

Regarding the high I/O you're seeing related to NCW (Norton Community Watch) and the ncwperfmon.db and ncwmrc.db files.

 

If you open the Norton Tasks window (Performance | Norton Tasks) as shown below, zoom out to one month and click anywhere inside the graph with your mouse, you see a pop-up window listing each process that was running on your PC at the time and what % of your CPU and memory each program used.  According to my NIS 2011 Help files (search for the topic  "about CPU graph and memory graph"), NIS takes a snapshot of my CPU and memory usage every 15 seconds and stores that data on my local hard drive for one month.  Since the .db file extension is reserved for database files, I'm guessing this performance data is being saved in the ncwperfmon.db and/or ncwmrc.db database(s) of your NAV as well.

 

In Windows Task Manager, I can see the number of I/O reads and I/O writes for the Symantec Service Framework (ccSvcHst.exe) process increasing over time between re-boots, but I don't see ccSvcHst.exe consuming large amounts of CPU (shown as yellow peaks in the Performance Monitor graph) or "thrashing" my hard drive unless one of the background Norton tasks listed at the bottom of the Norton Tasks window (e.g., Idle Quick Scan)  starts running while my system is in idle mode.

 

NCW Disabled.jpg

 

If you disable Norton Community Watch as I have (in NIS 2011, it's Settings | Miscellaneous Settings | Norton Community Watch) this data continues to be collected and written to your hard drive every 15 seconds.  However, disabling NCW should stop the submission of NCW performance reports to the Symantec servers via your Internet connection, which is the CPU-intensive portion of the idletime NCW task.

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Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 9.0.1
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

...and regarding the Idle Quick Scans, other users are correct when they state that Idle Quick Scan cannot be disabled, and this includes NAV 2012 and all previous versions.  Of the seven idletime background Norton Tasks listed at Performance | Norton Tasks, Idle Quick Scans and Norton Insight are the two tasks that Symantec has never allowed users to reconfigure or permanently disable.

In the 2011 version of Norton products, Idle Quick scans were essentially rapid flash scans that primarily analyzed memory and autorun objects.  To compensate for this, Symantec scheduled weekly Idle Full System Scans as the default in 2011 products.

In the 2012 version of Norton products, Idle Quick scans are much more thorough and take more time to complete.  For this reason, Idle Full System Scans are only scheduled to run once a month by default in 2012 products.  When the first v. 19.1.0.28 of NIS and NAV 2012 were released there were several complaints about these longer Idle Quick Scans continuing to run after users had taken their system out of idle (see Atomic_Blast's thread here for one example), and Symantec supposedly addressed the problem in v. 19.2.0.10 (see the post here titled Issues Fixed in Version 19.2).  In addition to using Silent Mode as a temporary measure to suspend these background Norton tasks, Symantec has introduced a new Metered Bandwidth feature in 2012 products to give users better control over how some of these tasks are scheduled (see Symantec employee michaell's post here for more info).

So you are correct if you have observed that Idle Quick Scans appear to be running "more" in NAV 2012, although the frequency hasn't changed, just the length of time it takes to complete a scan.

If these Idle Quick Scans are impacting your system performance and you see your system slowing down or freezing outside of system idles (you should be able to tell by matching the Last Run date of the task in the Norton Tasks window to high CPU usage by ccSvcHst.exe in the upper graph - see the screenshot in message # 8), I would suggest that you try a clean re-install of NAV 2012 using the Norton Removal Tool just in case something went wrong during the installation.  Instructions are posted here for NIS - just use the offline NAV 2012 installer at www.norton.com/nav12.  If you prefer to roll back to NAV 2011, the offline installer can be downloaded at www.norton.com/nav11.

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Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 9.0.1
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Thanks Imacri for your analysis for this problem... but in the latest version I think Symantec heard about my problem... the option for disable Idle Scan (Full System Scan) is now available in the Norton Settings... and now I can sit back and relax while my Norton AntiVirus not doing anything.. Much better...


tridentcore wrote:

 

... but in the latest version I think Symantec heard about my problem... the option for disable Idle Scan (Full System Scan) is now available in the Norton Settings... and now I can sit back and relax while my Norton AntiVirus not doing anything.. Much better...


Hi tridentcore:

 

As far as I know, the option to disable the Idle Full System Scan has always been available in NIS and NAV.  In your old NAV 2011, the setting was found at Settings | Computer Settings | Computer Scans | Idle Time Scans | OFF and in your new NAV 2012 the setting was renamed Settings | Computer Scans | Full System Scan | OFF - hence the confusion.  With your old NAV 2011, changing the Idle Time Scans from Weekly to OFF only disabled the weekly Idle Full System Scans but had no effect on the automatic Idle Quick Scans that run every time you update your virus definitions.

 

There is still no way to disable the Idle Quick Scans in either NAV 2011 or 2012, but according to Symantec employee Tim Lopez's post here titled Product Update - 19.5.0.145/19.5.1.2, a recent product update for NAV 2012 contained a bug fix so that "Quick Scan should do a better job of detecting the idle state of a system before running".  That bug fix might be the reason why you've been seeing fewer hard drive IO read/writes outside of system idles lately.

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Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.7.0.13 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 10.0.1
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS