Richard Matthew's PC sounds like it's about to have a nervous
breakdown and he thinks Norton is the problem ....
breakdown and he thinks Norton is the problem ....
I have installed Norton Security and the computer is whirring away continuously like it's about to have a nervous breakdown. It's very annoying. Does it matter? Can I get rid of it?
Richard Matthew
A home PC will normally spend most of its time idling along, without using much of the processor's power or accessing the hard drive. It shouldn't "whirr away" for very long, unless it's working hard. Unexplained whirring is usually due to excessive use of the central processing unit (CPU), which creates heat and noise, and slows down or even stops any programs that you actually want to run. It's therefore a good idea to find the cause and eliminate it. To do this yourself means delving into Windows' internal processes, but it's useful to know how. You can use the same approach with any program, not just Norton. Otherwise, if this answer seems hard going, skip to the last paragraph.
Of course, you should expect Norton to make heavy demands on your system when it is checking your hard drive for malware, but it shouldn't be doing that while you're around. Recent versions of Norton Internet Security (from about 2009 onwards) are only supposed to kick into action during "system idle time", when your PC is not in use. You can adjust this value in Norton by clicking on CPU usage, so you could try setting a longer time interval, but I wouldn't expect this to solve the problem.
Before we start, however, you should get your PC up-to-date, because you may be trying to solve a problem that has already been fixed. Go to the Windows Update site (there's a link near the top of the Start menu) and make sure you have all the critical updates installed. Next, open Norton, click on Support, and select New Version Check. Install the 2011 version if you don't have it, plus any updates, then run a virus check using the latest signatures. Finally, reboot your PC to see if the whirring has gone away. If not, you'll at least be starting with a fresh system.
To find a CPU hog, download two free tools written by SysInternals: ; Process Explorer and Process Monitor. Microsoft liked SysInternals' tools so much it bought the company, so they are now available from Microsoft's site. Both downloads need to be unzipped but neither needs to be installed: you can run them from anywhere you like. It's a good idea to put copies of them along with HiJackThis, Malwarebytes and other useful tools on a "rescue" USB stick.
Process Explorer does the same job as the Windows Task Manager, but it's more advanced. Run it and it will list all the processes that are running in your PC. Look in the third column under CPU and it will tell you what's hogging the processor. It won't be hard to spot because almost all the other entries will be blank apart from System Idle Process. This should normally be at around 95% to 99%, which is what you want. If Norton is the culprit, it could be a process called ccsvchst.exe. Either way, each process should have an entry in the Company Name column.
In Process Explorer, click on View and then select Columns to bring up a tabbed properties sheet. You should be at the Process Image tab. Put a tick in the box next to the entry for Command Line and click OK. You will now have a column that tells you where to find the code for the malfunctioning process ("C:\Program files\" etc), so you can check its size and date stamp. If you search for the file name online, numerous websites will tell you if your file has the correct size and date, and some will hazard a guess as to whether it's likely to have a virus infection. Some virus writers like to disguise files by giving them the same names as system files, but they may be a different size or in a different directory. Either way, you can upload any file to Symantec or another other anti-virus site to get it checked.
Sometimes you may find two or more processes hogging the CPU. This can happen if two programs are operating at a low level, which is why it's not recommended to run two anti-virus programs at the same time. You might be running a child safety program or other monitoring software that Norton might reasonably suspect is doing malware-type things. You might have a program that kicks in to check mail in the background, and so on. The Microsoft Outlook Connector sometimes used to give Norton problems. See if you can update, reinstall or entirely remove whichever program appears to be causing the problem. This includes Norton.
To log any problem that you have found using Process Explorer, go to the File menu, select Save As, and save the text file (call the first one procexp.exe-01.txt) to your download directory or desktop. If you need to go to an online support forum or have any contact with Norton, it will be much easier to paste in all or part of this file than to try to remember or describe it.
Having found the process that is hogging the processor, you can now run Process Monitor to find out exactly what it's doing. I don't have a copy of Norton, but I did have a similar problem with MsMpEng.exe, which is the "engine" that drives the Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus program. It was using 50% of my CPU, and might have used more if MSE had not been set to use a maximum of 50%. (The setting is at the bottom under the Settings tab.) I ran Process Monitor (Procmon.exe), then used the drop-down selections to create a filter where "Process Name" is "MsMpEng.exe". This told me what that process was doing.
As it turned out, MsMpEng.exe appeared to be obsessed with the entirely harmless psialog.txt file – the log kept by Secunia's free Personal Software Inspector 2.0. My quick-and-dirty solution was to open MSE, go to Settings, click "Excluded files & locations" and exclude the Secunia directory (C:\Program Files\Secunia) from "real-time protection". MsMpEng.exe's processor use promptly dropped to zero, the fan turned off, and the whirring stopped.
You might not be able to find such a simple solution to your PC's problem. However, you will have enough information to post a smart query on the Norton community support site. It's easier to answer a query that asks why ccsvchst.exe has a conflict with SpyBuddy, or whatever, than "why is my computer whirring?"
Finally, for those who find Process Explorer and Process Monitor induces brain-freeze, there is a simple Softonic program that "does what it says on the tin": What's my computer doing? This provides a continuous read-out of the three or four processes that are actively doing something – which includes accessing the hard drive – without listing the thousands that aren't. Clicking on any process gives you a good read-out of its details, including Known Problems with links to external solutions in, for example, Microsoft support documents. Even people who don't have a PC problem may find the readout of interest.
Richard Matthew
A home PC will normally spend most of its time idling along, without using much of the processor's power or accessing the hard drive. It shouldn't "whirr away" for very long, unless it's working hard. Unexplained whirring is usually due to excessive use of the central processing unit (CPU), which creates heat and noise, and slows down or even stops any programs that you actually want to run. It's therefore a good idea to find the cause and eliminate it. To do this yourself means delving into Windows' internal processes, but it's useful to know how. You can use the same approach with any program, not just Norton. Otherwise, if this answer seems hard going, skip to the last paragraph.
Of course, you should expect Norton to make heavy demands on your system when it is checking your hard drive for malware, but it shouldn't be doing that while you're around. Recent versions of Norton Internet Security (from about 2009 onwards) are only supposed to kick into action during "system idle time", when your PC is not in use. You can adjust this value in Norton by clicking on CPU usage, so you could try setting a longer time interval, but I wouldn't expect this to solve the problem.
Before we start, however, you should get your PC up-to-date, because you may be trying to solve a problem that has already been fixed. Go to the Windows Update site (there's a link near the top of the Start menu) and make sure you have all the critical updates installed. Next, open Norton, click on Support, and select New Version Check. Install the 2011 version if you don't have it, plus any updates, then run a virus check using the latest signatures. Finally, reboot your PC to see if the whirring has gone away. If not, you'll at least be starting with a fresh system.
To find a CPU hog, download two free tools written by SysInternals: ; Process Explorer and Process Monitor. Microsoft liked SysInternals' tools so much it bought the company, so they are now available from Microsoft's site. Both downloads need to be unzipped but neither needs to be installed: you can run them from anywhere you like. It's a good idea to put copies of them along with HiJackThis, Malwarebytes and other useful tools on a "rescue" USB stick.
Process Explorer does the same job as the Windows Task Manager, but it's more advanced. Run it and it will list all the processes that are running in your PC. Look in the third column under CPU and it will tell you what's hogging the processor. It won't be hard to spot because almost all the other entries will be blank apart from System Idle Process. This should normally be at around 95% to 99%, which is what you want. If Norton is the culprit, it could be a process called ccsvchst.exe. Either way, each process should have an entry in the Company Name column.
In Process Explorer, click on View and then select Columns to bring up a tabbed properties sheet. You should be at the Process Image tab. Put a tick in the box next to the entry for Command Line and click OK. You will now have a column that tells you where to find the code for the malfunctioning process ("C:\Program files\" etc), so you can check its size and date stamp. If you search for the file name online, numerous websites will tell you if your file has the correct size and date, and some will hazard a guess as to whether it's likely to have a virus infection. Some virus writers like to disguise files by giving them the same names as system files, but they may be a different size or in a different directory. Either way, you can upload any file to Symantec or another other anti-virus site to get it checked.
Sometimes you may find two or more processes hogging the CPU. This can happen if two programs are operating at a low level, which is why it's not recommended to run two anti-virus programs at the same time. You might be running a child safety program or other monitoring software that Norton might reasonably suspect is doing malware-type things. You might have a program that kicks in to check mail in the background, and so on. The Microsoft Outlook Connector sometimes used to give Norton problems. See if you can update, reinstall or entirely remove whichever program appears to be causing the problem. This includes Norton.
To log any problem that you have found using Process Explorer, go to the File menu, select Save As, and save the text file (call the first one procexp.exe-01.txt) to your download directory or desktop. If you need to go to an online support forum or have any contact with Norton, it will be much easier to paste in all or part of this file than to try to remember or describe it.
Having found the process that is hogging the processor, you can now run Process Monitor to find out exactly what it's doing. I don't have a copy of Norton, but I did have a similar problem with MsMpEng.exe, which is the "engine" that drives the Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus program. It was using 50% of my CPU, and might have used more if MSE had not been set to use a maximum of 50%. (The setting is at the bottom under the Settings tab.) I ran Process Monitor (Procmon.exe), then used the drop-down selections to create a filter where "Process Name" is "MsMpEng.exe". This told me what that process was doing.
As it turned out, MsMpEng.exe appeared to be obsessed with the entirely harmless psialog.txt file – the log kept by Secunia's free Personal Software Inspector 2.0. My quick-and-dirty solution was to open MSE, go to Settings, click "Excluded files & locations" and exclude the Secunia directory (C:\Program Files\Secunia) from "real-time protection". MsMpEng.exe's processor use promptly dropped to zero, the fan turned off, and the whirring stopped.
You might not be able to find such a simple solution to your PC's problem. However, you will have enough information to post a smart query on the Norton community support site. It's easier to answer a query that asks why ccsvchst.exe has a conflict with SpyBuddy, or whatever, than "why is my computer whirring?"
Finally, for those who find Process Explorer and Process Monitor induces brain-freeze, there is a simple Softonic program that "does what it says on the tin": What's my computer doing? This provides a continuous read-out of the three or four processes that are actively doing something – which includes accessing the hard drive – without listing the thousands that aren't. Clicking on any process gives you a good read-out of its details, including Known Problems with links to external solutions in, for example, Microsoft support documents. Even people who don't have a PC problem may find the readout of interest.
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