machine freezes while running Avast

For the second time in 2 days, my PC froze in the middle of doing a virus check with Avast. First time it happened, I thought perhaps it had a case of "stomach flu". So I shut off and rebooted into safe mode where I was able to complete a thorough scan with Avast. No problems. Check with Ad-Aware and Spybot likewise turned up negative. Assuming it had been a fluke, I continued on my merry way. No problems until today, when I once again tried an Avast check while in Windows. Froze near the half-way point. Don't know where to go at this point, but I know "somethin' ain't right!". Would greatly appreciate any input. I haven't installed any soft/hardware recently. Running WinXP/SP2, Avast is the only AV installed, 1GB memory, 160GB HDD (SATA), CPU and mobo temps well within good area. Any ideas? Thanks
-SgtRon-

 

did you tried reinstalling avast?

 

Thanks for your input. No, I haven't. I'm still a novice, so figured that Avast was ok, since it worked fine in Safe Mode. Am I mistaken? reinstalling is no big deal, but I don't want to if I don't have to.

 

It is possible that avast is freezing because its checking a bad driver file,
you may think that your pc is up to date but when you use safe mode all driver sare disabled and you dont have any trouble then.
So it still might be a driver that is not up to date or possibly corrupt.
If i had to chose between reinstall all my drivers or reinstall a single program than i would say reinstalling avast is the least time consuming thing to do and if you dont have any trouble then you saver yourself from reinstalling all your drivers

 

I agree with criminelis. I never get much satisfaction/help running stuff in Safe Mode.

For a second opinion maybe download AVG (second anti virus program)

http://www.majorgeeks.com/ download886.html

See if that gets through or hangs also. It may throw some light on your problem. It doesn't hurt to have more than one AV on your system, just don't have 2 running at the same time as it can cause problems. I have read for and against, on having 2 running at the same time but the majority say don't do it. I don't. I use Avast and have no problems with it. Bazza

===

 

Thanks, Bazza, I'll try that and get back to you.

 

IT also happened to me once when I ran Avast to do a check up it froze half way through and I gave it a few minutes and nothing happened. I ended up having to exit it and restart-normally-and did a new checkup and it worked fine then. I still use avast but maybe after some more research I will switch later.

 

Thanks to BigBazza and all you guys. Works fine now. I downloaded, installed and ran AVG with no problems. Then reinstalled Avast and did another check; also with no problems. Who knows - - - like I used to tell my students in Electronics Fundamentals, it's all magic! One of these days we'll all wake up and none of this stuff will be real. Seriously, I may use AVG from now on. It got the job done in 1/3 the time taken by Avast. Again, thanks to all of you.
-SgtRon-

 

Check if one scans more files than the other. Just remember, use the one that you feel most comfortable with. You could always keep 2, just have 1 running full time.

 

Agree with you, Can't come up with any.

SgtRon, make sure you are talking about apples versus apples. Settle on the one you are happy with. Run the other occasionally when you are offline. Glad it worked for you, Bazza
===