A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
Disabling Hardware graphic acceleration (and disbaling any other option for that matter - trust me I've tried everything ) only prevents freezing, but does not prevent cpu spikes. I've just tested copy and paste with a simple excel file that represents the problem perfectly:
Ctrl+C a couple of cells -> CPU climbs to 60% (This on a machine with an i7 and 12 gigs of ram)
Esc -> CPU drops to near 0.
Clearly excel's clipboard is doing some pretty intensive calculations when copying cells. What its trying to calculate god only knows...