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

Anonymous
2018-05-30T21:21:39+00:00

When  I have excel open, even a tiny spreadsheet, and move the window around the screen there is severe lag. The window can keep moving around the screen for a few seconds after I have stopped moving the mouse. I am running windows 10 with all updates installed and Office 365 with all updates installed.

The lag gets worse when connected to an external high res monitor.

This problem does NOT occur with any other application window which can be moved around the screen as fast as I like with no lag.

I am running Surface Pro 3, i5 8Mb Ram with all updates installed.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-01-13T23:11:43+00:00

    Hello Everyone,

    I have this problem on the computer that I am running a 144 Hz display (with nVidia G-sync).  I believe it is an issue with Windows trying to redraw the Excel window at 144 Hz while the window is being dragged around the screen.

    If you try it on a computer without G-sync (normal 60Hz monitor) you probably won't get the issue but let me know.

    *edit*  The other thing to check is the polling frequency of your mouse.  If you have a gaming mouse with 1000Hz polling frequency try changing it to 500Hz.  

    -Brian

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-01-23T21:41:03+00:00

    I just did a new system build, clean install, got excel, it worked fine for a few days.

    Then today it started this window lag problem. and only on my new desktop, not my old laptop. I'm not sure whats going on.

    This is an Excel problem, and it has been for a long time. It's related to the system tracking the virtual workspace when the window is moved (which is why turning off 'show window contents while dragging' sometimes helps). Eventually, there will be a fix

    • in the mean time, you probably won't get a lot of help here, other than the standard 'reboot your system', 'update your drivers', 'some other program/driver/device' blah blah blah.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-01-30T18:26:48+00:00

    It appears that the Microsoft workers quit trying to help solve the problem. Silence...

    I have this same issue with my HP Windows 10 work laptop that I was issued a couple weeks ago. Excel is the only application that does this. Kind of like drifting your car around a mountain road. As an IT worker, I prefer to have my screens do what they're expected to do; leave the drifting to the car.

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-02-07T09:05:40+00:00

    This is not just Excel problem, for me this occurs also with Word 2016. Funny enough these are the only two applications that have this annoying issue.

    It doesn't sound convincing that the root cause is monitor refresh rate or mouse polling rate. My reasoning for that argument is lagging occurs on my laptop that is using 60 Hz display and non-gaming basic business mouse which uses Windows' built in HID driver.

    Also in some forum post I saw a comment where user said that feature update 1809 fixed this issue. At our office we have both 1809 an 1803 setups and issue happens in both.

    Below some system details

    Winversion: 1803 build 17134.556

    Excel version 2016 MSO (16.0.4738.1000) 64-bit

    OS - Name Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64

    OS - Architecture x86_64

    OS - ProcessorModel AMD PRO A10-8700B R6, 10 Compute Cores 4C+6G

    OS - NumberOfProcessors 4

    Memory - Available 3003301888

    Memory - Capacity 7963312128

    Display - PixelsPerInchXaxis 96

    Display - PixelsPerInchYaxis 96

    Display - Height 1080

    Display - Width 1920

    Display - DevicePixelRatio 1

    Cheers,

    Matti Nousiainen - Sr Test Engineer & Quality Consultant

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