Deniedstingray :
Thanks for all the replies guys. I realized that Avast had some resource hogging settings that i just had to turn off. its working great now.
First of all, thanks for the kind words and mentions, we appreciate it.
Deniedstingray, I'm concerned about the CPU usage; it's important to us that Avast and AVG are lean and fast and we're highly rated for performance too.
Can you tell me more about what you specifically disabled that resolved the problem? Which shields did you have enabled when you saw the issue, and which ones did you disable that resolved it? What version of Windows? (build # is helpful too)
Also, have you tried running an Online Repair of Avast? If you've uninstalled/reinstalled this may be helpful. (Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Highlight Avast -> Click Change -> Online Repair)
In any case, I want to ensure this gets reported to our devs, so let me know when you get a chance!