Win7 - Stuck 'checking For Updates' Forever...

I've done some googling on this and the problem seems to be rife but most of the solutions seem pretty long winded. My last installation of Win7 from EXACTLY the same image updated fine, so I don't understand how it can refuse to work at all this time round. Both installations were done via USB, however the old installation was done on a mobo with a 'normal' BIOS whereas this Z170 mobo uses the snazzy looking UEFI BIOS. That's all I can think of that might have an affect on how the OS is installed, unless SSD drives don't work well with Win7 (just a guess).

-I tried disconnecting all non system drives (the HDD's were sounding off like crazy while checking, but the Win7 I'm using is installed on the SSD, not any HDD!) = no difference

-I tried power-cycling the router and reconnecting a few times = no diff

-I tried changing update options around (eg download but don't install, instead of notify only) and changing UAC from off to different levels of on = no diff

I'm yet to reinstall a firewall & AV so that can't be the problem. The installation is literally bare bones, nothing but Win7 SP1, a network adapter driver and a gfx driver. SVChost is using up 25% CPU (more or less 1 of 4 cores) and over 1.5GB's of RAM so it LOOKS like it doing something, but I've been waiting a long time now and when I last did this (just over a year ago on the old install) there was none of this crap, it just found the updates & I installed em, job done, no waiting for hours like I am now... My internet is working normally as far as I can tell.

Thanks in advance.

 

Okay FINALLY it found the updates but it just took a lot, lot, LOTTT loooonger than it did on a 10+ year old PC. I won't pretend that makes any sense lol but I'm just happy it's finally got itself in gear! I even read this takes 24+ hours for some truly unlucky people. That's insane LOL!

I guess this thread should be deleted, I just needed more patience... Cheers!

 

There's another thread about this. Many of us had the same issue. What I did was use wsus offline update which immediately downloaded and then installed Windows Updates. When I used Windows Update from within Win 7 afterward, results were immediate.