How to stop Bitdefender from running or prevent it from using RAM?

minikolaj

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Aug 28, 2017
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I got Bitdefender a while ago. It uses a lot of RAM (Around 500 MB) and I want to be able to free up that RAM while gaming. How do I do it? I don't mind if I need to close any Bitdefender processes even though I'd prefer not to have to. I have tried closing them myself from process explorer (task manager) as admin but I simply get this error "Error terminating process: Access is denied."

I tried contacting the support service and they made me try some different stuff including updating to the newest version. I also tried closing all the so called "modules" from inside the program. Nothing helped and suddenly they stopped responding (They still haven't answered 3 months later, I strongly suggest staying away from this software).

I appreciate any answers. Thanks in advance.
 
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Solution


500MB?
This is from my system just now:
UTxtHvI.png

Not even 25MB.


Fix the primary cause, the game.

SoggyTissue

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Jun 27, 2017
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bitdefender is a good av, has fewer tasks running than most other av. the disadvantage of that is the running process will be larger than many smaller modules.

switch to avast / similar av which has more, but smaller modules which can be disabled.

sorry if this is not the answer youre looking for :(
 

Rogue Leader

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I've been using Bitdefender for years its the best and most lightweight AV out there.

I'm looking on my server right now and it used HALF that much memory. My suggestion? Uninstall it and then reinstall the latest version, maybe something is not working right.

How much ram does your system have and what are the specs? That bit of ram really isn't going to make a world of difference for you, and many times when people go on these crusades against windows memory management, they lose.
 

minikolaj

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Aug 28, 2017
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Thank you for all the answers

I'm sorry but I'm not switching to another AV when I just paid for this one, I'll consider you suggestions when my license expires.

Here are the specs for my PC (ASUS ROG G11CD-K-NR108T):

Core i5 7400 3 GHz
RAM 16 GB
SSD 128 GB
HDD 2 TB
GTX 1070

I have already tried reinstalling Bitdefender but unfortunately it didn't help. I'm not actually 100% sure on how much RAM it uses on average though. I'm aware that it may not sound like a lot of RAM but it's important to consider games with memory leaks e.g. Just Cause 3. Just Cause 3 will use all the memory sooner or later and I'd prefer that it's later. Like I mentioned before if it's not possible to restrain the memory usage I don't mind just stopping Bitdefender. That will also help relieve my already quite pressured CPU.

 
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Rogue Leader

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If the game has a memory leak 500mb in the grand scheme of things won't do much for you, but hey its your system do whatever you want.

All of the things in this link will go a lot further towards solving your problem than disabling Bitdefender

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustCause/comments/405mh6/fixed_just_cause_3_massive_fps_drops_and_stutter/

It sounds like you may not be logged in as an Administrator, because you should be able to kill all the processes. Otherwise there is no real way to disable Bitdefender short of uninstalling it.
 

minikolaj

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Aug 28, 2017
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I'm logged in as an Administrator and start Process Explorer as Administrator but I just get "Error terminating process: Access is denied."
It's really unfortunate that I can't do anything else then uninstalling. Any idea why I can't just terminate it?
 

Rogue Leader

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Doesn't make sense, but honestly I've never tried to kill Bitdefender before, its possible there is something thats part of its protection to keep it from being shut down. Thats the first thing a virus or trojan horse would want to do, disable Bitdefender.

Did you try the things I linked to actually solve your problem? Removing your AV is a bandaid on a bullet hole for such games.
 

minikolaj

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Aug 28, 2017
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Haven't tried fixing Just Cause 3 yet but I'll give it a try soon. You are probably right about Bitdefender being intentionally built so that it's very tough to kill. Thank you for the help so far XD I'm still hoping that someone knows a method.
 

Rogue Leader

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I really don't think there is one. I just remoted into my home server and tried to kill it as well and it won't die. If you could disable it it defeats the purpose.

Fixing the game is a far better method here. Check the link I provided it should help. 16gb of ram is way more than enough for any game these days.
 
Dec 24, 2018
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Keep scrolling down on your Task Manager there's a couple other Bitdefender services, one of them will be 200+ MB, and if you look at your resource monitor Bitdefender is keeping hostage more than 700 MB on one service alone.
 
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Rogue Leader

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Bitdefender uses about 400mb on my machine. about the same as Google Chrome with a few tabs open. With 8gb+ of ram thats hardly an issue for anyone, and it was not this posters issue. Please only reply to current threads.