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?

This IS REPEATABLE - and seems specific to Excel 2013. System: Intel Core i7-3820 @ 3.60 GHz, 12 GB RAM OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit with SP-1 OFFICE Installations: Office 2003 Pro (32 Bit) Office 2010 Pro Plus (32 Bit) Office 2013 Pro Plus (32 Bit) EXCEL 2013: When I go through your process things seem fine until I move the visible group. At that point CPU usage jumps from 1 or 2% to up around 30%. Task manager confirms it is Excel that is eating up the cycles. If I make the hidden pair visible again, CPU usage again drops to 1 or 2%. Hide them, move the other, and we are back up to steady 30+% usage. The Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration setting does not alter the results in any fashion. EXCEL 2010: Same machine, same setup - same actions: CPU usage never goes up except momentarily when I move the visible group on the sheet. I have no clue what you'd do to work-around it in 2013; it seems to fall into the category of "if it hurts when you do that, don't do that". And I personally would find that an unacceptable answer.

I'm not seeing the problem with Excel 2010: Win 7 Pro (64-bit) with Office 2010 Pro (64-bit) on a system with an older Intel Core2 Quad CPU, Q9650, at 3 GHz, w/4.0 GB RAM. I'll have to wait about 3 hours until I get home to try it on a system with an i7 and Office/Excel 2013 (32-bit). I'll update after checking things out on that system.

JohnathanRoss1 - if your problem is not related to shapes, I'd suggest asking it as a new question. It would be a totally different situation since it would not involve Excel/Office's graphics engine.

We have tried this setting on two computers. It does not resolve the problem, it is still repeatable in the way described above, and in our applications. Any other suggestions?

Hello, and thanks for your reply. I have updated my computer, which has a NVIDIA Quadro NVS295, with the latest drivers. This changed the driver version from 311.06 to 320.92 but it did not solve the problem. Also, I have tried the same steps on two computers in our company, and on my Virtualbox VM, all with similar results: Excel starts using high CPU. I have run the "Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.1" as mentioned in the KB article. This scanned my Excel installation and found no problems. Actually I am quite convinced that the steps I mention reproduce this problem accurately. Can you verify if this is the case?

Excel 2013 High CPU Usage

Anonymous

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?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

2014-01-09T00:52:29+00:00

This IS REPEATABLE - and seems specific to Excel 2013.

System: Intel Core i7-3820 @ 3.60 GHz, 12 GB RAM

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit with SP-1

OFFICE Installations:

Office 2003 Pro (32 Bit)

Office 2010 Pro Plus (32 Bit)

Office 2013 Pro Plus (32 Bit)

EXCEL 2013: When I go through your process things seem fine until I move the visible group. At that point CPU usage jumps from 1 or 2% to up around 30%. Task manager confirms it is Excel that is eating up the cycles. If I make the hidden pair visible again, CPU usage again drops to 1 or 2%. Hide them, move the other, and we are back up to steady 30+% usage.

The Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration setting does not alter the results in any fashion.

EXCEL 2010: Same machine, same setup - same actions: CPU usage never goes up except momentarily when I move the visible group on the sheet.

I have no clue what you'd do to work-around it in 2013; it seems to fall into the category of "if it hurts when you do that, don't do that". And I personally would find that an unacceptable answer.
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Anonymous

2014-01-08T21:07:51+00:00

I'm not seeing the problem with Excel 2010: Win 7 Pro (64-bit) with Office 2010 Pro (64-bit) on a system with an older Intel Core2 Quad CPU, Q9650, at 3 GHz, w/4.0 GB RAM.

I'll have to wait about 3 hours until I get home to try it on a system with an i7 and Office/Excel 2013 (32-bit). I'll update after checking things out on that system.
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Anonymous

2014-01-08T20:53:32+00:00

JohnathanRoss1 - if your problem is not related to shapes, I'd suggest asking it as a new question. It would be a totally different situation since it would not involve Excel/Office's graphics engine.
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Anonymous

2013-10-24T07:18:21+00:00

We have tried this setting on two computers. It does not resolve the problem, it is still repeatable in the way described above, and in our applications.

Any other suggestions?
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Anonymous

2013-10-22T09:27:18+00:00

Hello, and thanks for your reply.

I have updated my computer, which has a NVIDIA Quadro NVS295, with the latest drivers. This changed the driver version from 311.06 to 320.92 but it did not solve the problem. Also, I have tried the same steps on two computers in our company, and on my Virtualbox VM, all with similar results: Excel starts using high CPU.

I have run the "Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.1" as mentioned in the KB article. This scanned my Excel installation and found no problems.

Actually I am quite convinced that the steps I mention reproduce this problem accurately. Can you verify if this is the case?
Was this answer helpful?

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