Jump to content

insane cpu usage when running a scan


Recommended Posts

i wanted to run a scan to scan the whole system instead of a quick scan, so i ran a custom scan and had it check for everything throughout my system. malwarebytes uses 80-95 percent of my CPU and my fans were running like crazy on max. power. this happened for 18-19 minutes straight as malwarebytes tells you how long the scan has elapsed, and it started happening the moment the scan was initiated. i'm using the free version with no trials or anything like that. only thing that was affected was the cpu when i looked into task manager. i have since uninstalled malwarebytes from my computer leaving me with default windows security. why does this happen and could this damage my laptop?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Staff

***This is an automated reply***

Hi,

Thanks for posting in the Malwarebytes 3 Help forum.

 

If you are having technical issues with our Windows product, please do the following: 

Spoiler

If you haven’t already done so, please run the Malwarebytes Support Tool and then attach the logs in your next reply:

NOTE: The tools and the information obtained is safe and not harmful to your privacy or your computer, please allow the programs to run if blocked by your system.

  1. Download Malwarebytes Support Tool
  2. Once the file is downloaded, open your Downloads folder/location of the downloaded file
  3. Double-click mb-support-X.X.X.XXXX.exe to run the program
    • You may be prompted by User Account Control (UAC) to allow changes to be made to your computer. Click Yes to consent.
  4. Place a checkmark next to Accept License Agreement and click Next
  5. You will be presented with a page stating, "Get Started!"
  6. Click the Advanced tab
    Repair menu_arrows.png
     
  7. Click the Gather Logs button
    Advanced_arrows.png
     
  8. A progress bar will appear and the program will proceed with getting logs from your computer
    Advanced Gather Logs_arrows.png
     
  9. Upon completion, click a file named mbst-grab-results.zip will be saved to your Desktop. Click OK
    Advanced Gather Logs completed_arrows.png
     
  10. Please attach the file in your next reply. Before submitting your reply, be sure to enable "Notify me of replies" like so:
     notify me.jpeg  

Click "Reveal Hidden Contents" below for details on how to attach a file:
 

Spoiler

To save attachments, please click the link as shown below. You can click and drag the files to this bar or you can click the choose files, then browse to where your files are located, select them and click the Open button.

mb_attach.jpg.220985d559e943927cbe3c078b
 

One of our experts will be able to assist you shortly.

 

If you are having licensing issues, please do the following: 

Spoiler

For any of these issues:

  • Renewals
  • Refunds (including double billing)
  • Cancellations
  • Update Billing Info
  • Multiple Transactions
  • Consumer Purchases
  • Transaction Receipt

Please contact our support team at https://support.malwarebytes.com/community/consumer/pages/contact-us to get help

If you need help looking up your license details, please head here: https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1264 

 

Thanks in advance for your patience.

-The Malwarebytes Forum Team

Link to post
Share on other sites

Greetings,

By default Malwarebytes will use pretty a lot of CPU resources to complete the scan as quickly as it can.  It is also multi-threaded to take advantage of multi-core CPUs and CPUs with SMT/Hyperthreading.  That said, you can reduce the impact of scans on your CPU with the tradeoff being that they will take longer to complete.  To do so, open Malwarebytes and navigate to Settings>Application and under Impact of Scans on System select Lower the priority of manual scans to improve multitasking and your future scans will use a significantly reduced amount of CPU.

With regards to potential damage to your system, as long as the cooling is sufficient and you aren't running your system overclocked with the default balanced or power saver power plan selected then it should be fine.  That said, over time the fans and heatsinks in a system (especially laptops where the available space for cooling solutions is limited) can get clogged with dust, hair and other material that can really choke the fans and dramatically reduce their ability to keep the system cool.  Also, over time the thermal paste used to marry the heatsink to the CPU can dry out and lose much of its thermal conductivity, generally after a year or more depending on the quality of paste used, the average temps the CPU reaches on a regular basis (the longer it is run at high temps the quicker the paste tends to dry out).  Of course there are other factors as well, such as the effectiveness of the cooling solution built into the laptop to begin with as well as the voltage and efficiency of the CPU (for example, in my own laptop I have an i7 7700K which does tend to be a pretty hot CPU, however it's a pretty large laptop with an excellent cooling solution and I regularly clean the fans/heatsink fins and replace the thermal paste, always using a high quality paste such as Kryonaut, however my laptop was designed for high-end hardware for gaming to be able to handle such hardware under intensive loads; most systems are not that extreme).

Anyway, I hope this helps, and if there is anything else we might assist you with or if you have any further questions please let us know and we'll do our best to assist you.

Thanks

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 4/11/2019 at 8:23 PM, exile360 said:

Greetings,

By default Malwarebytes will use pretty a lot of CPU resources to complete the scan as quickly as it can.  It is also multi-threaded to take advantage of multi-core CPUs and CPUs with SMT/Hyperthreading.  That said, you can reduce the impact of scans on your CPU with the tradeoff being that they will take longer to complete.  To do so, open Malwarebytes and navigate to Settings>Application and under Impact of Scans on System select Lower the priority of manual scans to improve multitasking and your future scans will use a significantly reduced amount of CPU.

With regards to potential damage to your system, as long as the cooling is sufficient and you aren't running your system overclocked with the default balanced or power saver power plan selected then it should be fine.  That said, over time the fans and heatsinks in a system (especially laptops where the available space for cooling solutions is limited) can get clogged with dust, hair and other material that can really choke the fans and dramatically reduce their ability to keep the system cool.  Also, over time the thermal paste used to marry the heatsink to the CPU can dry out and lose much of its thermal conductivity, generally after a year or more depending on the quality of paste used, the average temps the CPU reaches on a regular basis (the longer it is run at high temps the quicker the paste tends to dry out).  Of course there are other factors as well, such as the effectiveness of the cooling solution built into the laptop to begin with as well as the voltage and efficiency of the CPU (for example, in my own laptop I have an i7 7700K which does tend to be a pretty hot CPU, however it's a pretty large laptop with an excellent cooling solution and I regularly clean the fans/heatsink fins and replace the thermal paste, always using a high quality paste such as Kryonaut, however my laptop was designed for high-end hardware for gaming to be able to handle such hardware under intensive loads; most systems are not that extreme).

Anyway, I hope this helps, and if there is anything else we might assist you with or if you have any further questions please let us know and we'll do our best to assist you.

Thanks

Checked with Dell and they said the laptop doesn't use thermal paste 🤔

The laptop in question is the Dell Inspiron 1500 i5577 "Gaming" laptop.

I really don't know if this shitty Malwarebytes program has reduced the lifespan of my CPU and overall usage of the laptop.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Dell's support staff must be mistaken; ALL laptops use thermal paste (as do all desktops, otherwise the heatsink can't make proper full contact with the CPU's IHS and thus can't conduct heat off the CPU efficiently).

Anyway, the load on your CPU shouldn't do any damage (again, as long as the laptop isn't suffering from any thermal problems, and if it is then I'd definitely recommend getting that fixed as gaming or any other intensive tasks could create problems in the future if not dealt with).

Link to post
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, exile360 said:

Dell's support staff must be mistaken; ALL laptops use thermal paste (as do all desktops, otherwise the heatsink can't make proper full contact with the CPU's IHS and thus can't conduct heat off the CPU efficiently).

Anyway, the load on your CPU shouldn't do any damage (again, as long as the laptop isn't suffering from any thermal problems, and if it is then I'd definitely recommend getting that fixed as gaming or any other intensive tasks could create problems in the future if not dealt with).

 

dellthermal.png

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, that guy sounds like he was just reading off the specs sheet and clearly doesn't know the full details of how laptops/computers are built (it sounds like you know much more about it than he does, honestly).  I assure you it does have thermal paste, but back to the main issue of CPU usage, as I mentioned before, you can reduce the CPU load in Malwarebytes scans by changing the setting I mentioned, and also, because Malwarebytes is designed to look in the locations where threats are known to hide and checks all active processes, threads in memory and loading points (in the registry, startup folders etc.) then most of the time you really only need to perform the default Threat scan which doesn't check every file on the system, but does check all the locations where infections and PUPs are known to install themselves and whenever any new locations are discovered they get added to the databases by the Research team so changing those default locations for the Threat scan doesn't even require a change to the code/new product release to address.

Regardless, putting a high load on your system shouldn't do any harm to it as long as the cooling solution is adequate, and given that it's a fairly modern system, it should be so while the fans will ramp up when under load, that's quite normal because that's what the cooling fans are designed to do in order to ensure that the system runs within acceptable temperatures.  Depending on the particular CPU you have in your system, the rated thermal limits can vary, and it also depends on the amount of voltage being put through the chip from the VRMs on the motherboard which, in most mainstream laptops, are typically pretty low powered as they are usually more concerned about longer battery life and cooler temperatures than high performance.  For the same reason, they'll usually configure the CPU to throttle itself if it is ever in any danger of reaching temps that are higher than they should be in addition to the default throttling mechanisms that Intel builds into their chips' firmware (usually around 100 degrees Celsius, which your CPU should never reach anyway as long as the cooling solution is sufficient).

Heat in laptops is something I'm very familiar with having used high end desktop replacement gaming laptops for years myself.  In fact, I'm currently using a 15.6" laptop with an i7-7700K overclocked to 4.6GHz with a GTX 1070 which is also overclocked, and while the fans definitely do ramp up when under load, it is never in danger of overheating (even in spite of the fact that I've actually disabled all throttling and limits on the CPU to keep its clock speed at a full 4.6GHz across all cores full time, which is not normal as usually clock speeds vary based on load and the number of cores/threads being used).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
Back to top
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This site uses cookies - We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.