In ,
Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , glee
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
snip
(Can't they be "told" it's a single-core processor they're running
on?) [Avira seems OK here.]
snip

Avira is the only AV that I can get to run on really old XP systems
with 512MB RAM or less and an older processor, without it bogging
down the entire system.

(Good to know - I think - that I'm using a light one.)

How do you mean, "tell" the program it's on a single core?

I was referring to the suggestion someone made that most AV 'wares
these days assume they're on a multicore system, and cause heavy
load if run on a single-core system. I was wondering if they might
have a setting to prevent them trying to multiprocess. (Probably
not, as presumably it should be possible to do it - the detection of
whether multicore or not - automatically, so if they don't, they're
not going to bother.)

In Windows, you can use Task Manager and the "Affinity" setting,
to force an executable to stay on a particular core. On a multicore
system, that would effectively reduce the loading on the system.
On a single core system, Affinity is not going to help you as
you only have one core to begin with.

Task Manager also has "priority" settings, and you can experiment
with cranking down the priority setting. If two processes want to
run 100% on the same core, they split 50:50. If you drop the priority
of one process by one notch, then one process might get 75% while
the other gets 25%. So priority doesn't prevent one from running
entirely, it just changes the balance between the two. If you use
too extreme a setting, sometimes a potential side effect is a
deadlock in the system. So don't get carried away.

But an AV program, isn't going to tolerate being manipulated like
that. AV programs are pretty sensitive, and they have to be able
to defend themselves against any potential malware attack. Undoing
Task Manager changes, would be childs play for them. They're
armor plated.

Oh man! Manually adjusting the priority almost never works well. What
works better is software designed to automatically adjust the priorities
on the fly. As they automatically lower them if they are using too much
and bring them back up when they are using too little. Why Windows
doesn't have something like this built in, who knows.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3