Windows defender's process running despite it being disabled.

[gabytzu339]

I've tried to play some league of legends today, and even though it usually runs smoothly 120+fps maxed out, today it was stuttering even after lowering the video settings. I checked task manager, the ram usage was at 80% (i've got 8gb ram) despite the game was only consuming a little bit less than 1gb and all other processes hardly 500mb altogether. I should've taken a screenshot. Anyway, i found this strange process "Antimalware Service Executable", googled it and found out it has to do with Windows Defender or/and Security Essentials. I checked to see if i have either of those and it seems i don't. I can't kill the process, it says access denied or something like that. I downloaded Malwarebytes anti-malware and scanned twice, 0 threats found.

 

[Sasqui]

Just a thought, are you sure Windows isn't busy downloading updates? The best way to test is give it another shot a few hours later or the next day... just to rule that out.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I checked to see if i have either of those and it seems i don't.

Windows Defender is integrated within Windows 10. So you have it and it is running (as it should be) unless you installed a 3rd party "real-time" anti-malware solution. If you are using an alternative security solution, it should have registered itself with Windows Action Center which would then disable the real-time component of Windows Defender - unless you specifically told the 3rd party solution not to register itself.

For example, if you purchased Malwarebytes "Premium", it has a real-time scanner (the free version does not). When you install Malwarebytes Premium, it registers itself in Windows Action Center. But because Malwarebytes and Windows Defender play very well together without hogging resources or causing conflicts, it is often recommended to allow each to run at the same time. So to allow that, the user has to manually go into the Malwarebytes control panel Settings menu and select the option to "Never register Malwarebytes in the Windows Action Center".

I suspect other 3rd party solutions provide similar options so you might check that out if you did indeed, install a 3rd party security solution.

Both Windows Update and Windows Defender are supposed to step way back in to the background so they do not interfere with system performance when you are actively using your computer. But this is not always possible, especially if you regularly shut down your computer when you step away from it (instead of just letting it go to sleep), as too much time may have passed and your system is too far behind in Windows and security updates.

Without you noting which program was actually consuming the lion's share of that 80%, there's no way to tell what, at this point, was causing the problem. However, I would not put it past a browser. Chrome, for example, is very good (or bad, I should say) at eating up a lot of RAM and failing to let it go when exited.

 

[gabytzu339]

Thanks for the time you took to explain. I didn't experience that since earlier today, but i am certain there were no browser running in the background, i specially closed it cause the game was stuttering. Also as a side question, shouldn't i be able to see all of the windows' processes? When i looked @Task manager at that time it was shown the game i was playing consuming around 1gb of ram and ALL others processes barely consumed 500 altogether while it was showing 80% of 8gb were used at the moment. I remember in windows a button like "Show processes from all users" or something like that.

 

[newtekie1]

Also as a side question, shouldn't i be able to see all of the windows' processes? When i looked @Task manager at that time it was shown the game i was playing consuming around 1gb of ram and ALL others processes barely consumed 500 altogether while it was showing 80% of 8gb were used at the moment. I remember in windows a button like "Show processes from all users" or something like that.

In newer versions of Task Manager you have to go to the Details tab to view all the processes running on the computer.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Also, you can go to the Performance tab and click on "Open Resource Monitor" (at the bottom) to see details of the usage of the various computer resources.