Avast Slowing Down Your Computer? How to Fix it

Avast antivirus software protects your computer from malware attacks and viruses by running multiple scans simultaneously. However, these processes can also degrade your system’s performance as they can use up a good chunk of the available resources such as CPU, RAM, Storage space, etc.

Although it could be Avast slowing your device’s performance, your system could be bottlenecking the entire process. If you have the antivirus enabled as a startup, then it would start as soon as the computer boots, delaying other processes.

Similarly, other factors relating to your hardware and software may be the reason behind your device’s slow performance.

Is Avast Actually Slowing Down Your Computer?

Before fixing the Avast antivirus, you need to ensure whether the antivirus is causing your system to slow down or is caused by other factors. To verify this, you can check how much resource Avast antivirus uses in your system through the task manager. 

1. Press the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys together to open the task manager.
2. Scroll down and locate the Avast antivirus. The Antivirus is at fault if it takes a significant amount of CPU, memory, and disk usage.
   

An antivirus program requires RAM to scan and run diagnostics on your computer. If your system lacks a sufficient amount of RAM, it will affect your system’s overall performance. Ensure that you have at least 2GB of free RAM.

Running multiple antivirus software severely degrades the computer’s performance. Ensure that you don’t have multiple antivirus software running simultaneously.

How to Fix Avast Slowing Down the Computer?

After you’ve determined that Avast is, in fact, slowing your computer down, there is a range of solutions you could apply to fix this issue. In this section, we’ve mentioned everything from disabled additional features to repairing the program. Refer to the method that is most relevant to you.

Disable Unwanted Avast Features

Avast antivirus runs numerous scans in the background, some of which could be unnecessary. You can manually choose which scans to run to reduce CPU load. To disable unwanted features, follow the steps:

1. Press the Windows + R keys simultaneously.
2. Type appwiz.cpl in the Run command text field.
   
3. Double-click the Avast Free Antivirus
4. Click on Yes on the given prompt.
5. Click on Modify or Change.
   
6. Uncheck all the features that you don’t wish to use. 
   
7. Click on Change.
8. Click on Yes to confirm the authorization.
9. Click on Restart computer

Disable Mail Shield

You should also disable Mail shield as this service takes up resources but is rarely functional. Follow the steps to disable it:

1. Open Avast antivirus and click on the menu.
2. Click on Settings.
   
3. Switch the Protection tab.
4. Click on Core Shields.
5. Scroll down and click on Mail Shields under the Configure Shield Settings section.
6. Uncheck the Enable Mail Shield checkbox.
   
7. Select Until I Turn It On Again on the prompt.
   
8. Click on the Ok, Stop button and reboot your computer.

Enable Delayed Start

In some cases, Avast antivirus software can run before Windows services, significantly slowing down the computer’s boot time. You can delay the application’s start after the windows are completely loaded. Follow the given steps:

1. Open Avast antivirus.
2. Click on Menu and select Settings.
   
3. Click on the Troubleshooting tab.
4. Tick the Delay Avast startup check box.
   

Free Up Storage Space

For Avast antivirus to function properly, your system needs disk space to store temporary files. When a hard drive fills up, it becomes more fragmented, slowing performance when reading data from the drive. It also prevents new data from being written, further slowing performance. You can run Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files from your system.

1. Open the Start menu and type in Disk Cleanup.
2. Select the drive where the OS is installed and click on Ok.
   
3. Click on Clean up system files.
   
4. Proceed to select the OS drive again.
5. Click Ok.
6. Select Delete Files to start the process.

Manually Update Antivirus

Avast antivirus automatically downloads and installs the latest updates in the background. This process can use up the resources in your system, hampering its performance. Instead, you can change the option to update the antivirus manually. Follow the steps:

1. Open Avast antivirus.
2. Click on Menu, then select Settings.
   
3. Click on Update under the General section.
4. Click on the More option in the virus definition section.
   
5. Select the I’ll Update Them Manually radio button.
   
6. Repeat the process for the application update section.

Repair Avast Antivirus

Avast antivirus can glitch out due to missing or corrupting crucial files. In such cases, you can manually perform a repair to ensure that all the files required by the software are still intact. To repair the software, follow the steps:

1. Press the Windows + R keys simultaneously.
2. Type appwiz.cpl in the Run command text field.
   
3. Double-click the Avast Free Antivirus.
   
4. Click on Yes on the given prompt.
5. Click on Repair.
   
6. Click Yes in the prompt.
7. Click on Done.

Uninstall the Antivirus

As a last resort, you can uninstall the antivirus altogether to fix your computer from slowing down. Follow the steps to uninstall the software:

1. Press the Windows + R keys simultaneously.
2. Type appwiz.cpl in the Run command text field.
   
3. Double-click on every software with an Avast prefix to uninstall the application.
   
4. Click on Yes on the given prompt.
5. Reboot your computer upon completion.