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
    2015-04-30T09:33:32+00:00

    Hello,

    Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for posting your query.

    Few more details would help us to provide a better response.

    Since when are you facing this issue?

    Is the computer connected to a domain network?

    Do you find the issue with a specific Excel file or with all Excel files?

    In the mean while you may start the computer in clean boot mode and then try to copy paste the data and check if the same issue occurs.

    Starting the computer in clean boot mode would disable all the non-Microsoft applications and the antivirus which could be one of the reasons for the error.

    Refer the article below to start the computer in clean boot.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

    Note: Ensure to restart the computer in normal mode after completing the troubleshooting steps.

    Reply with necessary information to check and help you better.

    Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-04-29T19:05:58+00:00

    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...

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-16T08:26:50+00:00

    Hello Matis,

    Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for posting your query.

    What are the troubleshooting steps you have tried?

    Let’s disable hardware acceleration by following the steps below and verify the status.

    · Open the Excel program.

    · Click on file, Options.

    · Go to the Advanced tab.

    · Under the Display section, check the box for 'Disable hardware graphics acceleration'.

    · Click OK.

    I hope the above information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance.

    Thank you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-04-15T14:27:39+00:00

    Hi,

    I think I have found a work around.

    I had this problem all of a sudden.

    I copy a row and Excel 2013 hang for about 20 sec.

    The file I open is a file reciding on a sharepoint site in a MS cloud 365.

    I saved the same file to my local disk, reopend it and it works like a charm. No problems what so ever doing the exact same manouver I did just 10 min ago.

    I now copy the file from my local drive to the same Sharepoint with another name, reopen it, do the exact same trick with copy/paste and it works like it should.

    I have no idea if this is fluke or if it has something to do with networking and/or Sharepoint.

    Hope this helps.

    Kind regards

    Jari

    **************  Feed back *****************

    Now my Excel behaves as before again. Explanation above is not working.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-04-09T01:20:32+00:00

    Hi

    Try disabling add-Ins

    Hello,

    CPU High Usage is still prevailing on my computer, though tried the steps from above.

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