# Solved: constant high CPU usage by mcafee



## fire.rider

My computer has consistently high CPU usage often at 100%. I am running Mcafee Security Center on my computer (rest of the specs about my computer are below). When Mcafee begins looking for updates and installing them (automatically around start up) that is when anything I'm doing on the computer either slows down to a crawl and can become unresponsive. 

The processes that seem to be taking over my CPU are:

mcshield.exe (up to 99% CPU and 130,000 K memory usage. prevents my other programs from running smoothly)
mcinsupd.exe 
mcods.exe

Even at startup the Mcafee icons take a long time (atleast a couple of minutes) to load in the bottom right corner of my screen by the time. And then the update process seems takes long as well (sometimes as long as 30 minutes). Its always taken this long, but recently I lost some valuable information due to my computer becoming unresponsive so that's when this became personal. 

Is it possible to limit the CPU usage by Mcafee so that my other programs aren't affected noticeably?

Thanks in advance. I really appreciate the time and efforts of all of you here.


--------------SPECS------------
OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
System Manufacturer: 75V80
System Model: 775VM800
Processor:x86 Family 15 Model 3 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~2666 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date: American Megatrends Inc. P1.00, 6/3/2005
Total Physical Memory: 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory: 55.76 MB
Total Virtual Memory: 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory: 1.96 GB


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## techjed

when do you have it set to do a system scan?

did you kill the proccess that causes the problem? and what happened?

techjed


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## fire.rider

the system scan goes automatically, around noon i think.. but that doesn't slow down my computer. 

What slows down my computer are the updates and update installations that Mcafee does.

My computer still slows down during updates. I haven't really gotten a solution yet. But as a temporary solution, my updates are not automatic anymore and so when I know i'm going for lunch or something i manually prompt mcafee to start looking for updates and installing them. Even then, I do that not every day anymore, more like once every few days because it takes the same amount of time for Mcafee to search for updates and install them whether I do it in every day or after a few days. 

No, I didn't delete any processes in task manager. But I have noticed a significant speed increase without Mcafee's updating process. 

If anyone has a better solution, please let me know.


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## techjed

well if your not pleased with Mcafee, then i suggest AVG (the free home version) 

1. it's free
2. it's affective
3. it's never gave me that kind of trouble, but installing updates and what-not takes CPU time and the process seems to slow things down but its all good, 

if you can get the critical updates every couple of weeks, you should be (for the most part) fine... 


SO my solution is to un-install and download AVG and give it a test go and see if its not any better.

techjed


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## fire.rider

thanks i appreciate the advice. i think you're right, the updates do slow down any computer. maybe adding more RAM might help too. 

Thanks again!


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## techjed

No prob... dual core processors are nice as well 

techjed


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