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Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 11 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

I doubt if Vulnerability Scanner is to blame, because I haven't enabled it.

As for reproducing the symptoms, it may be possible to do that by going the uninstall/re-install route but right now I've got too many pressing problems to spare the time for it.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 12 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

If I recall correctly, my old XP PC, which came with a floppy drive, suffered from this.   That was 4 or more years ago, so it's not a new phenomenon.

I disabled the floppy in the BIOS to stop the grinding at startup.  I never used it anyway.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 14/03/14 7:42:05 EDT PM
catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 13 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

I am exhuberated that this discussion has been expanded, especially due to the fact more than one has experienced "Similar" instances as "jmckee" first noted. By PeaceKeeper mentioning the fact that the OP is indeed on "Dial-up'.

Can somewhat explain my first assumption, that the Particular Internet Connection can indeed, possibly hinder slower than normal  the time needed to "Download/Install the said update. However after further following the additional replies to this thread, has me wonder much more in differrent aspects.

Is this primarily specifically isolated to "Windows XP-Sp3" ? In regards to the referenced issues presented , (After) a "Major Update"... Could someone apprise me of exactly what the "Major Update" was comprised of?

As to date, I have been recieving my "Daily Engine Versions" and " and Anti-Spam Versions consistently.

As I mentioned in my response to the OP, I have not experienced no excessive CPU usage, or other irregularities as mentioned here-in.

As for the "Vulnerability" scanner is concerned, I have my settings as "Do not schedule" For I personally am aware of when Windows is due to "Update", and keep a close eye "Manually" on any Add-on, that may need to be updated.

My Final question in regards to the intial post.  Is this a specific "XP-Sp3" issue, or to be expected in

more recent versions of OS,? Specifically Windows 7 Sp1.... For as the here-in mentioned, " A major Upgrade" occured, I have yet to experince such an update?

I will be most interested to read the results, posted in future responses.

As always,

Thank you for any possible input.

Regards,

Catdaddy

Message was edited by: catdaddy on 3/14/14 6:30:50 PM CDT
Cliff
McAfee Volunteer
catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 14 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

Once again, must have been posting same time. Hope the "Plumbing" is going well

Cliff
McAfee Volunteer
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 15 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

I'm afraid that I can't contribute much except to recall that.   It is normal for floppy drives to be scanned because they are a risky form of media and the nature of their mechanism made them noisy, as distinct from optical CD/DVD/BD drives which can only run when media is inserted.   I would imagine that it's normal for the software to cause a bit of a stir to start with because the software scans for new threats.  Now the software has two scanners, the anti-virus and the Vulnerability Scanner (that can be turned off).   I haven't seen any over-activity on my rig, but it's Vista Ultimate SP2 x64 which is a giant leap from XP..

Let's see what Selvan comes back with.   Until then, if the floppy isn't in use, which nowadays it shouldn't be, by all means disable it in the BIOS.   As far as the rest of the header regarding CPU usage only the technicians could really get to the bottom of that.

.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 14/03/14 9:04:20 EDT PM
jmckee
Contributor III
Message 16 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

At least on my system , after the initial high CPU was noted (50% - 100%) , that issue went away after a little while. The floppy drive issue was there , just as Hayton noted , until the system had been rebooted twice. Ever since then , it has been back to normal. That was the first time such a thing has ever taken place on the system and McAfee has been on it all along. Something in the recent update that I received on Thursday was the cause.

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 17 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

It's worth noting that after the first reboot I suspected some undetected malware infection, so I ran a McAfee Quick Scan, Malwarebytes and a Windows Defender scan, all of which turned up nothing. I even downloaded Microsoft's Safety Scanner (with acapella machine-gun chatter in the background) but balked at the time it would take to run - I was concerned something in the hardware would be damaged - so that was shelved.

I also scheduled a chkdsk for the first reboot, and fired up Speccy to examine the state of the hard drive. Again, nothing out of the ordinary from either of those two.

Why would RTS be trying to read to or write from the secondary (I think the A: drive is secondary) boot media is the question : I assume that it was ignoring whatever signals were coming back from the system that there was nothing in the drive - and why did it stop this behaviour after, not the first reboot, but the second?

Sometimes McAfee's behaviour is unfathomable.

stonehenge
Former Member
Message 18 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

Don't know if this will help you, but I started having mega-floppy drive activity on Wednesday, March 12 after a McAfee update to Anti Virus Plus on my XP Pro SP3 system. I am using Version 16.8, Build 16.8.708, Engine Version 1828.0, both updated to Mar 14 2014.  I first tried to eliminate the issue by going to a restore point from the previous day but his work-around failed with the next McAfee update.  I discovered I could stop the problem by turning off Realtime Scanning but for obvious reasons this was not a satisfactory solution either. Finally, I simply inserted an old floppy into the drive and this stopped the activity until I removed the floppy and the problem started all over again.  Since I almost never use the floppy drive, I'm just going to leave a disc in the drive, removing it only when I have to reboot.  Simple, but effective so far.

Hope this helps you and others with this issue until McAfee fixes it.

Regards,

stonehenge

holden05
Former Member
Message 19 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

I'm the same. XP/SP3. Mcafee2013 (& previous) ran great. Installed 2014 today & the CPU usage went through the roof, and the floppy drive went nuts. Unplugged the FD, and turned off real time scanning - all went back to normal. Defiantly a bug in the software of 2014, in relation to XP/SP3.

I know XP is almost dead... but I'll still be using it for a while. So a fix would be appreciated.

Peacekeeper
Message 20 of 152

Re: Latest update causing excessive CPU and Floppy Drive activity

Ok I reconnected my floppy and enabled it in the bios on my XP test box sp3.

Yes there is a scanning of the floppy issue in fact far worse than I remember as well as 40secs in every 60secs and up to 40% cpu from Mcshield opening programs seem to slow down heaps.

Installed MSc 12.8.934

Virus scan 16.9.708

Vulnerability scanner active.

I uninstalled Mcafee fully as per http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?lc=1033&id=TS101331

and ran the mcpreinstall tool as well.

I then reinstalled Mcafee minus the following

No file lock

No online backup

no Vulnerability scanner

No parental controls

Issue still there so Vulnerability scanner not the cause seems to be RTS scanning removable drive. Confirmed Real time scanning is teh cause I disabled it and floppy silent after 5 minutes reenabled it and floppy immediately accessed.

I remember this issue back 8mths or so on win 7 PC my wife uses but was not as bad( need to find another floppy cable I threw all the rest out.). I will test that OS as well as installing beta 13.0 on it maybe they fixed the issue in the new version. This of course will not help the fading XP OS but I will bring this up in our Monday call to the techs.

on 15/03/14 5:58:53 EDT AM

Message was edited by: Peacekeeper on 16/03/14 3:29:42 PM
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