Excel 2013 High CPU Usage

Anonymous
2013-10-21T13:21:14+00:00

We work on a product that uses Excel, we are now testing all aspects of Excel 2013. During these tests, we seem to have encountered a problem where excel suddenly causes high CPU usage by only drawing some shapes. We have been able to minimize the problem into the following few steps:

  • Open a new, clean workbook
  • Draw an oval, give it a material (right-click, choose “Format Shape”, click “Effects”, “3D Format”, “Material”. Choose any material.)
  • Duplicate the Shape four times, producing Oval2, 3, 4 and 5.
  • Group Oval2 and 3. Group Oval 4 and 5.
  • Press Alt-F10, in the selection window, hide the group containing Oval2 and 3.
  • Deselect everything (!) by clicking in an empty cell.

Now observe the task manager. On an I7 Windows 7 PC, Excel now runs 4 cores at around 50%. Also, OnTime functions are not being called anymore because of this rendering bug. Once you select any shape, or un-hide the hidden group, Excel becomes quiet once again. Also, the problem can be prevented from happening by removing the materials in the shapes.

This bug (?) seems to happen also on most of our more complicated applications, and it would take lots of work to re-design everything not to use materials. Can anyone confirm this problem, provide a workaround?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-09T10:36:36+00:00

    Sean, could you make some more test while CPU is on high?

    Open Process Explorer

    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx

    Оpen Excel.exe process, page Threads, and double click on thread where CPU is high to see thread's call stack.

    Also, could you remove all data you may consider as private from this file and repeat tests to force high CPU usage by entering some random numbers?

    MS told that in my case file was created by a third-party application and in this case they are unable to help/solve the problem.

    BTW, is your file is native Excel-born or from third-party too as mine?

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-03-04T03:04:20+00:00

    I tried this and it did not fix the issue.  Behaviors are exactly as I reported above horizontal scrollbars hidden or not.

    This is the testing procedure I used:

    • Opened a simple 2 sheet workbook, each sheet with a table of numbers.
    • Workbook initially in standard (show horizontal scrollbar) state
    • Excel window not maximized
    • Added a simple bar chart as a separate chart sheet
    • Confirmed normal computer behavior regardless of what sheet is selected
    • Maximized Excel application window while chart sheet is selected - verified CPU ramp up.
    • Switching to worksheet or making Excel window not maximized returns CPU usage.
    • Hid horizontal scrollbars (File > Options > Advanced > Display options for this workbook > unchecked Show horizontal scroll bar)
    • Maximized Excel window with Chart as active sheet - CPU ramps up.
    • Switched to worksheet as active sheet or un-maximize Excel window - CPU normal
    • Saved workbook.  Closed Excel.  Reopened workbook.  Same performance - High CPU when chart sheet is the active sheet and Excel window is maximized.

    I'm now using:

    • Excel 2016 MSO (16.0.7766.7089) 64 bit
    • Windows 10 Home 64 bit (Ver 1607 OS Build 14393.693) with 4 GB RAM
    • Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac Pro Edition ver 12.1.3 (41532)
    • Macbook Pro with Intel Core i7-4960 with 16 GB RAM
    • OS X Sierra ver 10.12.3

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-03-03T10:03:33+00:00

    Hi All!

    Microsoft guys told me a workaround - you shoud hide horizontal scrollbar and everything will be fine.

    I my case it works.

    BUT!

    Showing scrollbars is per file setting and stored in excel file itself. In case you have other files opened with scrollbar enabled - the problem persist.

    Please try this and write your results.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-08T21:20:24+00:00

    Hi all - I found this thread because I was getting the same issue in Office 2016 version of Excel.

    We have a report we create for clients in excel that uses tables and a large number of macros and has various graph visualizations.

    Something is odd about the way 2013 and 2016 Excel treats these items. If you do not scroll through the entire document (top to bottom and left to right) and expose all of the graphs you see 40-50% CPU usage.

    As soon as you scroll completely, boom CPU usage drops to 0-1%. This fixes it for me.

    Somewhere in there Excel is using processing power to try and do something related to showing graphs, images etc. that are not on the screen. A quick scroll (not even stopping) fixes the issue.

    I have done everything else in this thread to remedy this issue. Scrolling fixes it.

    Hope this helps.

    Oh and graphics acceleration being disabled fixes the issue in Word 2016 of the typing being Delayed.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-05-06T21:16:55+00:00

    Hi Meron,

    <snip>

    Excessive demand to the processor goes back to inappropriate level after a while. At that point, if I open any other Excel file and close it right back, the level goes down immediately.

    I tried everything in this thread and nothing helped. But if I open a file and then close it, all is well.

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