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

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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  1. Anonymous
    2016-02-18T09:03:17+00:00

    Thank you Jkfweb, this was my issue. My vulnerability scanner pushed it out to all my clients before it was recalled. Uninstalled and Excel functions normally.

    Many Thanks

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T18:35:14+00:00

    This is not a fix but Just a workaround. I used norskale vuem on my entreprise laptop and that fix general performance issue as it manage cpu usage.

    I have no more windows interface freeze due to excel high cpu usage

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T17:58:33+00:00

    Has no one come up with an answer to this?? Tried all the fixes, disabling add ins, hardware acceleration, etc

    This is maddening. I keep having excel close. and restart. Only to close after i try to copy and paste. And the CPU is constantly over 50%

    There was a Windows Update that was released last week, and then pulled on Friday.  If you got this Windows Update it will cause the issues you are seeing which is unrelated to the necro thread you guys resurrected :)

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3114717#bookmark-uninstall

    Please review this support article on how to remove the Windows Update that is causing all of the issues!!  Good luck and I really hope that helps you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T16:41:13+00:00

    Having a similar issue with all of my PC's.

    Using a brand new HP Envy Laptop with a quad core i7 and 16Gb RAM, Windows 10 x64 and Office 2013 Pro+ x64.

    All fully patched

    Open excel > blank workbook > enter data in Cell A1 > CTRL+C > 100% CPU

    This behavior is replicated across my entire estate which use HP Pro 3500 G2 PC's, Windows 8.1 x64 with i3 processors and 8Gb RAM (Office Standard 2013 x64 again fully patched)

    My users are currently having to use Google Docs to get around it.

    Microsoft, where are you???

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T03:08:27+00:00

    Has no one come up with an answer to this?? Tried all the fixes, disabling add ins, hardware acceleration, etc

    This is maddening. I keep having excel close. and restart. Only to close after i try to copy and paste. And the CPU is constantly over 50%

    Was this answer helpful?

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