Windows Update hanging, CPU HOT!

J

joezapp

New Member
Hi. Hopefully someone has experienced this and can help. I have the Vista OS.

My CPU started running very hot on Tuesday. Fan working hard continuous, caused by svchost.exe (Net Services) at a steady 49-51%. Turns out that the system was checking for the Tuesday updates. It took 24 hours! So Wednesday afternoon the computer was calm. Today the problem has returned, undoubtedly because I have the icon to install the updates. I clicked "install", and it hangs on "Downloading Updates, 0kb, 0%". This is 2 hours now.

This happened to a lesser degree last month as well, so there is clearly something not right about Windows Update that is heating up my CPU. Please help if you have experienced the same and know the resolution. Thank you!
 
Your cpu should not be hot. Have you checked cpu temps? I would suspect old cpu paste and would need to remove it and reapply new. Is this a laptop or desktop?
 
It's a laptop. The problem is definitely caused by svchost.exe (Net Services) at a steady 49-51% while I'm having the Windows Update issue. If Windows would update rather than hang, svchost.exe would return to normal, and my computer would return to normal.
 
What is the total cpu usage though? 50% cpu usage shouldn't be doing this. I could see 75% and up but not this. Have you ran any general maintenance on this machine like ccleaner, checked for malware? Another thing you have to realize is that Vista is old and outdated. How much system ram is installed? If not enough, this could also be a problem.
 
The total is like 53% the majority of the time while I'm having this issue with Windows Update. I get occasional drifts to 75% and higher. I've run ccleaner, Malwarebytes, and my anti-virus. This computer has always been clean. I now see that there are others in another forum experiencing my exact same problem with the Vista updates for the past 3 months. It seems that I may be able to pre-install patches to resolve this. Two of the patch fixes of the past few months that worked for many...KB3145739 and KB3153199...have already have installed. If anyone knows the current fixes, please share!
 
Are you doing the updates automatically or manually? If manually, download one at a time and see what happens. How many updates are available to download?
 
I have it set to check for updates automatically. I may have to change that going forward if this 24-hour check is going to persist.

I then install when I'm ready. It's just 7 important updates.

I just selected 1 update of the 7, as you suggested. Let's see what happens...
 
Can you list the updates? Frankly, there are some important updates that I never installed on Vista and 7 machines simply for the fact its not really needed. If some of these updates are for Net Framework software, those are a pain to download and install through windows update.
 
Currently I've selected one simple update...the July Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. 21 minutes later, still stuck on "0". So I can't even do them one-by-one!

For what it's worth, 3 of the 7 updates are .NET, and installing has never been an issue.
 
joezapp said:
July Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
Click to expand...
Really not needed if you run an antivirus program. Windows defender sucks anyway. As far as the Net Framework software goes, you can just uninstall all of it and download the latest version.
 
Good info. I'll keep that in mind.

I've gotten far along on this quest. For others having this same issue, here are the links to the problem and the work-around solution...

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/618076/help-update-problems/page-2

This explains the dilemma, and also presents the hero who has managed the work-around for this:

http://wu.krelay.de/en/

So this is the procedure to avoid 24-hours "checking for updates". Since I've already done that, I don't know yet what alterations I have to make in order to get the updates to install.
 
Thanks for your help, johnb35. You've helped me in the past as well. Turns out that this is a new problem between Vista SP2 users and Microsoft that will likely be permanent, as Microsoft wants to make things difficult for us to not choose to upgrade to Windows 10.

For those having the same issue, here is the procedure for July:

1) download KB3168965
2) unplug from internet OR stop WU process using Task Manager
3) install KB3168965
4) restart and plug back into to internet OR restart WU

Then check for updates manually and install as per usual. It now took just a few minutes!

IMPORTANT: You no longer want Windows Update to even check for updates automatically. Everything needs to be manual going forward. You want Patch Tuesday to pass each month, and then you need to find that month's file that needs to be pre-installed so that you can run windows update normally. Use the links in my prior posts for that.

Best,
Joe
 
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