Solved! What is the best antivirus for my REALLY SLOW laptop?

[xxmlgdewxx420]

I've been looking for a antivirus that's really lightweight and offers good protection. I'm currently using Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes (only when I really need it). I've seen that many sites say that Avast is the most lightweight on RAM usage, but I didn't find any reliable information on CPU usage. I've also seen some people say that Essentials is the most lightweight, which got me very confused. The specs of my laptop are (really bad):

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1 32-bit
RAM: 2GB DDR3 Single stick (but it's configured to dual channel) 1333MHz
CPU: Intel Celeron 925 2.3GHz Single core, No Hyperthreading
(i)GPU: Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD, PHDGD Quebec 4.0 drivers Dedicated memory 128MB, Shared memory 749MB, Total memory 877MB

 

[Ralston18]

Could well be other reasons for the slow performance and new AV software may not resolve the problems.

Try running Task Manager to see what applications, processes, and services are running on your laptop.

And take a look at what resources are being used accordingly.

You might, for example, have a number of programs running in the background that are being started at boot up but you no longer really use those programs or at least do not need them to automatically be started. Some of them may be continually trying to "phone home" to non-existent sites or old updates.

Take your time, explore Task Manager and read the presented information very carefully. Good chance that you will find something that you know is not what it should be.

Hopefully, Task Manager will find some fixable reasons for the slow performance. Maybe the problem is just some outdated driver. Or an older misconfiguration error.

There are other tools that can help as well but one thing at a time. For my sake as well as yours....

And do not feel bad about the laptop's specs - most people have and can only have what they have through no fault of their own.

 

[xxmlgdewxx420]

Could well be other reasons for the slow performance and new AV software may not resolve the problems.

Try running Task Manager to see what applications, processes, and services are running on your laptop.

And take a look at what resources are being used accordingly.

You might, for example, have a number of programs running in the background that are being started at boot up but you no longer really use those programs or at least do not need them to automatically be started. Some of them may be continually trying to "phone home" to non-existent sites or old updates.

Take your time, explore Task Manager and read the presented information very carefully. Good chance that you will find something that you know is not what it should be.

Hopefully, Task Manager will find some fixable reasons for the slow performance. Maybe the problem is just some outdated driver. Or an older misconfiguration error.

There are other tools that can help as well but one thing at a time. For my sake as well as yours....

And do not feel bad about the laptop's specs - most people have and can only have what they have through no fault of their own.

Thanks for the advice, but there's no any other program that's slowing down the computer. I only keep programs that I need running in background. Also, I'm well aware of all the tweaks that can be done to make Windows run faster.

 

[mdd1963]

2 GB of RAM is just short of ridiculous....; I'm shocked anything works with that low of a RAM level....

Was this originally a WIn XP system? (Win 7 Ultimate on a Celeron seems an odd OS choice for a manufacturer, is why I ask)

 

[Ralston18]

Agreeing with mdd1963.

More RAM would likely improve performance to some extent.

Find out if you can add RAM to your laptop.

I would hope that 4 GB is viable (maybe two 2GB modules) is possible.