Why does my excel window lag so much when moved around the screen? no other app windows have the problem

This is a useful answer, but I disagree with characterizing high mouse polling rate as the problem, and with characterizing the reducing of mouse polling rate as a solution. A high mouse polling rate is a feature of some mice, and is desirable for some users--gamers in particular.

Even with the mouse polling turned down to 125, when I move Excel around it is still still noticeably more laggy than other applications on a 3.6 GHz i9-9900K with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

I think the real problem is that Excel is doing too much uninterruptible synchronous processing every time the window position changes (or maybe worse--every time the mouse is polled).

Reducing the mouse polling rate may be an acceptable workaround (not solution) to this problem for most non-gamers, but Microsoft really does need to fix the issue in Excel.

I don't mean to pick on the author of this answer, or to be too critical of answer itself. It is valuable information. I do want to join the chorus of people calling out the fact that this is an Excel performance problem--not a mouse polling rate problem, and it is Microsoft's responsibility to provide an actual solution rather than requiring this workaround.

The Problem: Report Rate on your mouse is too high.  It is polling too many times before the refresh on your screen and it lags to catch up.

The Solution: Lower the polling rate to at least 500 or lower.  After selecting 500, it fixed it for me and lowering to 250 and 125 felt the same so I stayed at 500.

First check your polling rate

If you are over 500Hz, then this fix is for you.

For my Logitech G502, that means opening the software application > customize onboard profile (the moues/memory chip icon) > report rate > selecting 500 for polling rate.

• If you don't have Logitech, try to find the report rate or polling rate or reports per second for your software and lowering it to 500 or lower
• If you use Window's driver for your mouse, try installing the proper software for your mouse so you can change the report rate
• If you can't do that, try downloading mouse rate adjusting program, you can find some on Tom's Hardware and simply adjust to 250 or 500 instead of 1000

The "drag" when moving the Excel window appears to be a position accumulation since the Window falls behind and continues to move after I stop my mouse (new observation). It does appear like extra mouse locations are stored or buffered.

My mouse is a Logitech B100-TAA. I am using DELL laptop. I noticed that the Logitech mouse does exhibit the buffering issue on this DELL, but the trackpad works perfectly. My problem is likely the cooperation between the DELL pointer driver and the Windows mouse driver. I think it is time to give up. At least the problem is not every window, just office.

Thank you all for the conversation. Maybe next time.

Todd

Using the link you posted, the fastest rate I can get with my current mouse is 120 Hz. 

Very interesting.

I wonder if maybe you actually need to increase the polling rate to better match what windows is trying to display?  I don't think that is the issue, but it is worth a shot to pump the polling up to 500ish

Or did you mean your mouse can't actually poll faster than that?

Might also be worth it to try a different mouse to see if there is any difference.

Or also possibly change the refresh rate of your monitor?

Hope you eventually can solve this!!

Did you try my suggestion of altering your polling rate? Even if you don't have a 'gaming' mouse, this could still be the culprit, and there are still ways to alter the polling rate to see if it will fix it for you.

Check this link to see what your polling rate is to begin with.

Then:

• If you use Window's driver for your mouse, try installing the proper software for your mouse so you can change the polling rate
• If you can't do that, try downloading a mouse rate adjusting program, you can find some on Tom's Hardware and simply adjust to a lower rate to see if it helps.

Using the link you posted, the fastest rate I can get with my current mouse is 120 Hz.

Did you try my suggestion of altering your polling rate? Even if you don't have a 'gaming' mouse, this could still be the culprit, and there are still ways to alter the polling rate to see if it will fix it for you.

Check this link to see what your polling rate is to begin with.

Then:

• If you use Window's driver for your mouse, try installing the proper software for your mouse so you can change the polling rate
• If you can't do that, try downloading a mouse rate adjusting program, you can find some on Tom's Hardware and simply adjust to a lower rate to see if it helps.