Thinkpads Forum

Hi all. I just recently purchased my T60, uninstalled the Symantec Client Security that came with it and installed my own version of Antivirus 10.1.4. However, I noticed that Symantec seems to be massively hogging my system resources - I experimented a bit and turned off "Tamper Protection," which seems to have alleviated the issue a bit. Is there a known conflict between something on the Thinkpad and the Tamper Protection? Is it safe to leave Tamper Protection off, and is there anything else on the Symantec that I should disable?

Thanks guys

I suggest you remove Tamper Protection too. Apples never add up with oranges so either use everything from Symantec or none. You'll thank heavens for getting rid of it.

I don't think I understand - can Tamper Protection actually be uninstalled, or do you mean just leave it disabled? I'd like to be able to use the rest of the program as my antivirus software, provided nothing else conflicts.

Thanks

Seleur wrote:I don't think I understand - can Tamper Protection actually be uninstalled, or do you mean just leave it disabled? I'd like to be able to use the rest of the program as my antivirus software, provided nothing else conflicts.

Thanks

Ofcourse it can be. But I think you've to remove Norton antivirus for that. By the way, everything from Symantec slows down your pc alot.

Here's a poll to see which antivirus is better. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#249346

Also if you're concerned about hackers, then you can look into firewall options as well. (ZoneAlarm is a very good, light weight, free and one of the best available today)

I think you must have done something to your install. Symantec Client Security uses very, very little resource (popular misinformation to the contrary). Once installed properly and running, CPU should run a 0 percent (re: Symantec Corporate) for months on end. Tamper protection does not cause CPU consumption either. If you don't wish to use it, just uncheck it.

I have been using Symantec Client Security Corporate from Version 1 (now on 3.1.5) and recommend it to clients. The incidence of problems with it is exceedingly low.

Of course, if you wish to use something different, by all means do so. ... JD Hurst

Thank you for the response. Do you know if there is a way to reload software that originally came with the computer? I uninstalled the Symantec Client Security software that was preloaded with the machine when I first got it.

Thanks

Edit: I think that I actually have identified a conflict between the Antivirus and the computer. Please note that I'm using Norton Corporate AntiVirus 10.1.4, not the Client Security Software. I found that disabling either the Tamper Protection or the Lenovo Away Manager seems to make the problem go away. So these applications seem to have some sort of conflict with each other. Still would be interested in knowing how to get the Client Security software back on my machine though.

Go to "Support and downloads" section on Lenovo's website, get your system auto detected, under "Downloads and drivers" you'd be able to find everything you're missing.

If you are pretty technical, you can safely go without antivirus scanners, anti-spyware software, etc... 99.99% of the time it's risky behavior that causes a machine to get infected, it almost never can happen on its own. If you are a cautious computer user, those applications do nothing but degrade your system performance. I'm not telling you to go without, I just wanted to point out that they are not necessary for protection - simple good habits go a long ways IMO.

Seleur wrote:Do you know if there is a way to reload software that originally came with the computer? I uninstalled the Symantec Client Security software that was preloaded with the machine when I first got it.

On my T42, there is a folder called C:\IBMTOOLS. In subdirectories of this folder are the installation programs for all the original software - including commercial software such as Symantec Client Security and WinDVD, which is not available for download from Lenovo's site. You should have a similar folder on your T60 although Lenovo may have renamed it since they took over. Tip: double-click on the .XML file in each subdirectory to find out what software is in that diirectory, and its version number. Normally you run Setup.exe to install the software.

I used Symantec av corp editon for some time and worked pretty good and seems like it gave me the protection i needed, but i think for each new version it used more resources and became slower. Version 10.5 had 6 or 7 services running and used a lot of ram. Also the application seems to behave slow in general. Also if i downloaded a file with a virus Symantec started working like i was defragmenting my disk and CPU usage went up and it took a while for the popup with a virus warning to show up. Also running the liveupdate manually is very slow. Another thing is that i couldn't find a way to do automatic update more then once a day. Also the plugin for outlook 2007 made outlook very slow to start and pretty slow in general. At first i thought this was because outlook 2007 where much slower then the previous release.

So i changed to nod32 some time ago and it's much faster GUI, faster to update virus defs, much faster respons when a virus is found, use less resource and less ram especially and it doesn't need 6-7 services, but still work very well. Also automatic updates can run with 1 hour interval. Since there sometimes is 3 updates a day i find that useful. Now outlook is faster as well without the symantec plugin.

I used symantec for many years and i think it's a good antivirus, but the newer versions became such a system hog and i decided to try something new. I found nod32 to be a much better option.

I guess that someone might disagree, but i would recommend to try nod32 for those that is unhappy with symantec or other virus software. nod32 is also very cheap to buy i think.

Just posting my own experience,
I use Symantec AV Corp. Edition. I also noticed the "hogging". I started looking for the reason. Symantec AV Corp. Edition (not sure about the other versions) stores its log files in the following folder: In my case the log files were extremely big, I opened one and noticed that its blocking the IPS Core Service (C:\WINDOWS\system32\IPSSVC.EXE). This service is installed by Lenovo. As soon as I stopped the service, system performance returned to its normal state.
Since I didn't know the service and no other services relied on it, I assumed it safe to be removed.

PS: I know the OS very well, so I follow my own rule which 99.99%has proven to be right. If i don't know a service/process, it's not required !

I see that Client Security (which include Symantec Anti Virus) is the same location. Thanks for that. In my case, the log files are very small (none are bigger than 12K).

But I don't have the file ipssvc on my system, and Google overridingly links it to a VPN client by LanCom. I can't find any reference to Lenovo. The references say it can be safely disabled, so why it is even there, I do not know.
... JD Hurst

I'm using McAfee and think it's nuch better than Norton~

just my opinion/

Just wanted to say thanks again all for the help. For the time being I'm leaving Tamper Protection disabled, and everything is working very smoothly. I'll probably uninstall Away Manager in the future and fully enable Symantec. I've always been decently pleased with the Corporate Version, and I get it for free through my University, so I'm going to stick with it for now.

Thanks again guys. Much appreciated.

jdhurst wrote:I see that Client Security (which include Symantec Anti Virus) is the same location. Thanks for that. In my case, the log files are very small (none are bigger than 12K).

But I don't have the file ipssvc on my system, and Google overridingly links it to a VPN client by LanCom. I can't find any reference to Lenovo. The references say it can be safely disabled, so why it is even there, I do not know.
... JD Hurst

Well I also googled for it and found the "VPN client by LanCom". But after looking at the file itself a came to another conclusion. Here comes the file properties for ipssvc.exe:
- Company: Lenovo group Ltd.
- File Version: 2, 0, 5, 2
- Internal Name: IPSSVC
- Language: English (United States)
- Original File Name: IPSSVC.EXE
- Product Name: Away Manager
So it doesn't have anything to do with the VPN client by LanCom. It's Away Manager!

HTH,
Hamid

Interesting - Thanks.
I don't use Away Manager (which is why I don't have the file), and I am surprised that Google doesn't find Lenovo. The vagaries of "search" .... JD Hurst

Hamid wrote:Just posting my own experience,
I use Symantec AV Corp. Edition. I also noticed the "hogging". I started looking for the reason. Symantec AV Corp. Edition (not sure about the other versions) stores its log files in the following folder:

Code: Select all

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition\7.5\Logs

In my case the log files were extremely big, I opened one and noticed that its blocking the IPS Core Service (C:\WINDOWS\system32\IPSSVC.EXE). This service is installed by Lenovo. As soon as I stopped the service, system performance returned to its normal state.
Since I didn't know the service and no other services relied on it, I assumed it safe to be removed.

PS: I know the OS very well, so I follow my own rule which 99.99%has proven to be right. If i don't know a service/process, it's not required !

I too had this problem with IPSSVC being blocked. I had 18gb of log files. ended the process (also remember to go to msconfig and turn off IPS Core Service, to make sure it does not start at startup). My tamper protection is still on, and things seem to be running a lot better now. I wish I could have seen this post a little earlier-in fact I should really thank window's fragging tool for finding this, I only learned about when logs when looking through an analyzing report.