Malwarebytes Pro and digital stutter

[gradus]

For ages now my pc has had a streaming glitch that shows on DPC Latency Monitor but has defeated my attempts to identify and cure the cause. Browsing Google today I came across the suggestion that the Malicious Website blocker on Malwarebytes Pro might be the culprit. I turned it off and the stutter has reduced but not entirely disappeared and is now a momentary thing rather than an irritating machine gun-like glitch. My problem is that my understanding of what I am doing is confined to what I read and I have almost no ability to decide for myself. Should I keep going with this partial solution or am I risking calamities if I do? I have Norton 360 running and the Windows Firewall is enabled which seems like belt and braces to me but is it?
Any ideas for removing the remaining a/v smudges much appreciated too.

[johnb]

I am certainly no expert but running both Norton 360 (which includes Norton Firewall) and the Windows Firewall seems problematical.

I would just have the Norton 360 firewall enabled, definitely not both. (But check that the Norton FW is enabled.)

If you google on "running both Norton 360 and the Windows Firewall" you will see that running both is not a good idea. (I'm surprised that Norton 360 didn't ask your permission to turn off Windows Firewall when you installed the Norton product.)

[Dave2002]

Without knowing exactly how the Windows code is written, and other factors it is very hard to be sure of anything.

1. How much main memory do you have?
2. How much hard drive space, and how full is it?

Have you checked CPU usage to see that nothing is a real CPU hog?

I surmise that some Windows systems (at least in the past) got into disc thrashing, even if ostemsibly there was sufficient spare disc space.

They don't tell you in all the books, but it is arguably a good idea to have at least 20% of the hard drive free to minimise problems. You might not get problems if you run with less than that, but it's easier and less time consuming to fix if the spare disc space is higher.

Even with sufficient spare space I have seen problems on some systems. Anything which swaps large volumes of data in and out of the hard drive might set up conditions for disc theashing, so anti-virus scans which are on all the time might do that. Disc thrashing can reduce performance almost to a standstill, but if not a complete slow down, can induce periodic glitches.

Video streaming, depending on the source, might also initiate thrashing.

[johnb]

Browsing Google today I came across the suggestion that the Malicious Website blocker on Malwarebytes Pro might be the culprit.
....
I have Norton 360 running and the Windows Firewall is enabled which seems like belt and braces to me but is it?

Further thoughts (in addition to my previous post):

Problems can arise when two different software packages are trying to do the same (or similar) things: they can conflict with each other. In addition to Norton360/Windows Firewall, this can occur when Malawarebyte Pro and Norton360 are both doing real time protection. The Malawarebytes website has suggestions for how to amend some Norton360 settings but one other option is to turn the Malawarebyte real time protection off.

I only have Norton Internet Security running (which includes the firewall and antivirus) as I don't use Norton360. I then run the free version of Malawarebytes periodically.

[gradus]

Many thanks for the responses. I have 'cured' the problem by streaming content through a laptop leaving my glitchy PC until i can summon up the courage to start fiddling with it.