Windows Defender high CPU + Disk usage?

[andrew89898]

Hi, My Windows Defender has been using 80+ MBPS of my SSD and between 30%-100% of my i5 4670k consistently recently for the past week. I gathered that it is not normal so I started looking in event viewer, task scheduler, Windows Update, Resource Monitor, I even added a few exceptions in the Windows Defender. Nothing seems to work at the moment and when I google it most problems seem to be with MSE where you can remove then install it again. I am on Windows 8 and cannot do this with Windows Defender. I am certain a scan is not running, and the only thing which stops it is if I disable the app.

Can someone help?

If you need any more info, ask.

Thanks.

 

[ComputerSecurityGuy]

I would disable the app and try a different, free security program. Especially since Defender is one of the least effective of them. See here http/ for the Tom's Hardware report on antimalware software. Personally I would use a free one but that's just me. If you are still having problems, you might have an actual bad patch or piece of malware. In that case it will take a lot more than just disabling Defender. But it should work. If it doesn't, there are other things you can do, but that's the obvious solution.

 

[andrew89898]

Hi, Sorry for the bump, but ever since this has been happening I have been using my PC with no antivirus (defender disabled) and I just thought that I should check if there is anything else I could try to get defender back up and working? Or if someone can recommend me a free antivirus where I control when to scan (no auto scans) and is just as lightweight as defender?

Thanks again.