I'm currently having issues with framerates in games at the moment (which I didn't have before). At first, I thought it might be an overheating issues, as I'm running a passively cooled 8800 GTX. However, it's no hotter than usual. Plus, if it was a graphics overheating issue, then I'm guessing that it would be fixed by dropping the resolution on Crysis (which it wasn't). My only thought is that perhaps the newest version of ZoneAlarm Security Suite (7.0.470.000) is as big a resource hog as some of the previous versions. Is anyone else finding it to be a resource hog? There seem to be a lot of system processes related to ZA. Any suggestions on a better anti-virus and firewall combination?

Start downloading a large file in a web browser, press CTRL ALT DEL for task manager, click Process tab, click CPU header twice, what's hogging your resources?

You can try turning off ZA logging & see how it goes. Personally, I use Windows firewall. The least resource hog would be Tiny Firewall, but it's no longer supported. Or the Sygate, which is discontinued.

outpost is a tunniest little fireewell and do the job as well