Windows 7 Home Premium, UPDATE problem

[#1]

My missus doesn`t use her computer often.... due to recent illness, she hasn`t used it for almost a year, ( last update check was 25/06/2015)..

She complained that Firefox would not load, so I have been trying to find out what is making it so slow... I found a prog that tells me the System Temp was 53 deg C  and the System Load was 90% to 100% . when it was doing nothing.. ( except trying to load FF Google search page).

Dell Inspiron Laptop, About 7 years old,  running Windows 7 Home Premium 6.1 64 bit with SP1 installed.

Intel celeron CPU 900 @2.2GHz

I have used another prog called "Process Explorer"..  which told me all sorts of thiings were running, some with high numbers under the CPU column, At first it appeared that SVC HOST was hogging the system, but on a second and subesequent run of Process Explorer.. other things kept jumping to the top of the list... 

Trusted Installer.exe  showed between 40 and 70 under the CPU heading, and Power Suite between 10 & 40

Back to the update problem... I have "checked for updates"... and it found 44 that were relevant... 2 were installed, and the rest failed... so I left it running on "downloading updates" for about 3 hours  and had to shut down,... had two more long session tries to get them downloaded... but no such luck.

so I have unchecked them all, and only checked the smallest sized update... 121kb  ... started the "downloading" bit at 13:48.... and it is still downloading at 14:00 showing  Downloading 1 update (0KB total,0% Complete)...

Line speed is 6 MB and I have no problems with FF on my machine on the same router and in the same location ( side by side to the missus at present)...

Anyone any Ideas, what is causing the problem? and how should I resolve it ? Please....

EDIT EDIT EDIT....

Just took some pics of "process exprlorer".... I tried to open firefox to see how long it took, and it was about 90 seconds from clicking the icon to the page appearing.... subsequent "new" pages appeared relatively quickly.. Hence the Firefox appearance at top of frame...

Other frames show that SVCHOST is , indeed hogging. the cpu... but how can I stop it doing that  ? ?  What is it doing  ?

[#2]

For problems with Windows Update have you tried the following?

Control Panel / Troubleshooting / System And Security / Windows Update

I don't know about the OCP usage except It is likely that a lot of activity is happening because Microsoft in its wisdom is preparing the PC for an upgrade to Windows 10 whether you want it or not. The following  thread suggests a way of avoiding this.

https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/Never-Install-Windows-10/m-p/1310589#M...

[#3]

Re CTRL panel..   No.. I haven`t .. but will do...

For info... that small "Update" has finished "downloading and installing"... it took 1 hour 12 minutes to complete !

Have just installed Never10.. and it reported that the laptop was ready for upgrading... so I have clicked on the disable  notification... and we shall see how it progresses...  ( will run Process Explorer now, and see if that has stopped SVCHOST hogging the cpu )..

Thanks

[#4]

Shutter , i notice from your pic , Avast AV are you sure its not updating or running at same time ?

Also Dell Data safe is Bloatware stuck on for free     i would uninstall

and BoostSpeed .exe  Just another pretend PC fix software  

[#5]

OK... done a reboot,Gone to the Troubleshooter, and it is now " searching on line for updates"  ! ! ! !>..   and checking the Process Explorer, shows  SVCHOST.EXE hogging above 85% of cpu usage  ( probably cos of the searching  ? ? ? ? )

The table keeps jumping about, as changes occur, so it is difficult to see what SVCHOST is actually doing, but there are lots of entries with that listed, but not all seem to have a CPU value

WIll take a "shot" and post it...

[#6]

@rongtw AVAST is "operational"... but is not running any scans...  ( I don`t have auto scanning running ).  nor is it updating... again.. I don`t have "Auto Update" running.)....

Boostspeed.exe   Yes, I undestand that...but it has done some cleaning and it was only intended as a "temp" measure, so will remove it, and thanks for the Dell Datasafe... again... I don`t use it.. so it`s just "sitting there" doing nothing...

Will uninstall it. if I can..

cheers

[#7]

Unfortunately you are not alone, lots of people have been reporting update problems with Windows 7, here's a typical example

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/172467-Windows-7-checking-for-updates-stalling

It may be worth your while having a browse of the Windows 7 forum there as there is a large update which if you installed could save a lot of time (it's a sticky thread)

[#8]

Thanks for the linky..... point of interest,,,,,, my laptop is running win 7 professional, and i dont have any problems with it....

[#9]

If you've been using it and keeping it up to date then you shouldn't have any problems, it's mostly people that have not updated for a while or have reinstalled that are having the issues.

[#10]

win7 Pro with updates disabled and same problem since January I think it started.  If it works it takes 30-60mins just to find updates, then 20-50mins to download them.

[#11]

Those of you still running Windows 7, watch out for Windows 10 trying to install itself!

I use GWX Control Panel to keep it at bay.

[#12]

Mini Update ..... ( you do not need to reboot your computer after you have read this ! ! !)...

Have erased a lot of program stuff, like the Dell Datasafe and Dell datasafe backup.  and a few other insignificant program folders... ( quicker than using the uninstall feature )... and then I did a Reg Clean up using three different reg cleaners...  1st was Auslogic Reg Cleaner.... ( I think it found 420 entries that needed to be removed).. then  I ran Eusing Reg Cleaner, and it found some other stuff... and finally used CCleaner Reg Cleaner...  Shut down and rebooted... then checked how quick FF loaded .... it was over 3 or 4 mins before I started this thread... it was just over 60 seconds ... been doing a bit more "cleaning"... and now its down to a reasonable 15 seconds from clicking the Icon to Google page showing... I did use the GWX control panel,to purge the Windows Update history  and also removed the Boostspeed prog....

Just rebooted... and starting Process Explore to see what is "top of the list" ! !... and the answer is System Idle Process... running between 30 and 90 ..  at the bottom there is a cpu usage meter showing a quickly changing value between 30 and 80 percent... until svchost.exe and Trusted Installer.exe show up, and then it runs very high between 70 and 100 percent variable.

Firefox seems to load in about 15 seconds , additional FF pages open in about 10 seconds .....  so somewhere along the line, I have made some improvements

[#13]

Just my two pennies worth.

How much RAM is in your Dell ?

I've bought a number of 2009 Dell laptops which came with Celeron 900 and hard drives in past 18 months.  With preinstalled 32 bit Windows 7 and 1 GB RAM, the performance was generally poor.   Slow to boot up (up to 2 minutes) and Chrome browser was very laggy when navigating the web on my Plusnet fibre connection.  

64 bit Windows usually needs twice as much RAM.  I also hate to think how 64 bit Windows would perform on a single core Celeron 900.

First things I did with these laptops, was replace the processor, installed more RAM, and fit an SSD. Recently took the plunge and upgraded to Windows 10 and don't regret dumping Windows 7.

if your Inspiron happens to be a 1545 which was widely sold back in 2009, it is very cheap and easy to upgrade the processor on that model.  I think the 1545 was offered with an Intel P8600.  A cpu cost a few quid from eBay, and there are youtube videos describing how to do it on a 1545.  You also need some thermal paste and may need to update the BIOS.

[#14]

Windows 7 now tends to make a real pigs ear of installing a lot of updates, often taking a very long time and failing at the first attempt.  But if you keep it updated monthly it will manage okay.

There is also now a vast quantity of fake utilities that tell you there is something wrong with your computer which you need to pay money to get fixed.  Malwarebytes is good at flagging these up as Potentially Unwanted Programs and I imagine it would have identified the program responsible for speedboost.exe had you run it.  There are a few utilities, like Ccleaner, that still seem to be largely trustworthy (although that often plugs Google software as you install it).

[#15]

@bill888 Thanks for your input.... The laptop is an N5030, basic cheapo Intel celeron 900 cpu , it has 2.00 GB ram installed, and was shipped with Windows 7 64bit, direct from Dell.

Understand about more ram, etc, but as it is for my Missus to check her lottery tickets, and view a few pics she "may" take with her camera, she does little else with it... might play the odd game of solitaire, and might spend some time looking on the net for a hotel or B&B if we are going on a break... so not really worth any hassle rebuilding it to a higher spec... it has 135GB free of 218GB on the hard drive... ! ! ! .. I`m not sure it is possible to change the HDD without some major surgery on the casing, as there is no "hatch" for it to be removed easily...

Windows 7 in its present status on the machine, works pretty much as vista did on her previous one...

I bought it for her to stop her wanting to use mine  ! ! !...