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?

Dear All, Does anyone have suggestions to solve this? We believe it is a genuine bug in Excel that is easily repeatable, as described above. Can someone confirm if this is repeatable on other computers/excel version etc.? Any suggestions for workarounds? Please let us know, as we are currently stuck in the development of one of our important applications... Yes, encountered the same problem on a complex tool we are working on. Currently not a big issue since the tool is still in development and not live, will need to fix on released. The problem can be explained like this: there is a certain group of images (8 shapes in total, no macros assigned) that need at some point to be hidden. Once this happens, for no understandable reason, the CPU spikes at 30%, and stays between 25 and 35 until the shapes are visible. No clue what's happening, very annoying. Note: haven't read the rest of the post yet, hopefully you've found a solution for this :)

I'm not techie, but I have the same issue constantly on a file that was created with Excel 2000. I regularly work on it in a 97-2003 version and also on Excel 2013 on a different computer. 2013 causes me NO end of grief, with the CPU usage fluctuating from 30-60%. The file freezes, becomes blank, a variety of issues. I don't have any drawings or macros running, the only thing that could be vaguely construed as complicated is that there is a "master" page which calls to cells on other pages. Currently I collect the data from a little over 300 sheets into this master. But I have ZERO problems working with this file in the old version of Excel, ever...and 2013 makes me want to throw my desktop out my 10th floor office window. Just thought I'd through in my "two-bits" worth.

I have the same problem as well with Excel 2013. It always hangs but this problem is not seen with Excel 2010. Please fix this... this is very obvious and recurrent problem.

Core i7-4700HQ, 12GB RAM, 512 SSD. Win8.1+Office 2013 Pro+ SP1 x64 Same error on Excel 2013 SP1! SP1 did not solve this issue. Repeated this problem on my laptop and newly installed laptop with Win8.1+Office 2013 Pro+ x32 Also I experienced the same problem as JohnathanRoss1 said - copying is getting down entire process, all windows that belongs this proccess freezes but workbooks opened in other process is going normal as usual.

This I have repeated on a HP workstation using Intel® Xeon® E3-1245v3 with Intel HD Graphics P4600 (3.4 GHz, 8 MB cache, 4 cores) Seems like another Excel 2013 problem

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

2014-10-31T12:48:19+00:00
Dear All,

Does anyone have suggestions to solve this? We believe it is a genuine bug in Excel that is easily repeatable, as described above.

Can someone confirm if this is repeatable on other computers/excel version etc.?

Any suggestions for workarounds?

Please let us know, as we are currently stuck in the development of one of our important applications...
Yes, encountered the same problem on a complex tool we are working on.

Currently not a big issue since the tool is still in development and not live, will need to fix on released.

The problem can be explained like this: there is a certain group of images (8 shapes in total, no macros assigned) that need at some point to be hidden. Once this happens, for no understandable reason, the CPU spikes at 30%, and stays between 25 and 35 until the shapes are visible.

No clue what's happening, very annoying.

Note: haven't read the rest of the post yet, hopefully you've found a solution for this :)
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Anonymous

2014-06-06T21:44:58+00:00

I'm not techie, but I have the same issue constantly on a file that was created with Excel 2000. I regularly work on it in a 97-2003 version and also on Excel 2013 on a different computer. 2013 causes me NO end of grief, with the CPU usage fluctuating from 30-60%. The file freezes, becomes blank, a variety of issues. I don't have any drawings or macros running, the only thing that could be vaguely construed as complicated is that there is a "master" page which calls to cells on other pages. Currently I collect the data from a little over 300 sheets into this master.

But I have ZERO problems working with this file in the old version of Excel, ever...and 2013 makes me want to throw my desktop out my 10th floor office window.

Just thought I'd through in my "two-bits" worth.
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Anonymous

2014-04-01T07:36:35+00:00

I have the same problem as well with Excel 2013.

It always hangs but this problem is not seen with Excel 2010.

Please fix this... this is very obvious and recurrent problem.
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Anonymous

2014-03-12T12:27:04+00:00

Core i7-4700HQ, 12GB RAM, 512 SSD.

Win8.1+Office 2013 Pro+ SP1 x64

Same error on Excel 2013 SP1!

SP1 did not solve this issue.

Repeated this problem on my laptop and newly installed laptop with Win8.1+Office 2013 Pro+ x32

Also I experienced the same problem as JohnathanRoss1 said - copying is getting down entire process, all windows that belongs this proccess freezes but workbooks opened in other process is going normal as usual.
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Anonymous

2014-01-09T16:37:25+00:00
This I have repeated on a HP workstation using
- Intel® Xeon® E3-1245v3 with Intel HD Graphics P4600 (3.4 GHz, 8 MB cache, 4 cores)
Seems like another Excel 2013 problem
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