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
    2020-04-14T18:37:29+00:00

    Have the same issue on a 144Hz monitor with a G502 mouse, don't want to turn down polling and definitely not disabling the ability to view content while dragging as they're both needed features.

    Amazing how many things MS still hasn't gotten around to fixing even though this is going to be a problem that will soon drastically get worse as more and more monitors get higher refresh rates, only half of the ones in my house are still 60Hz, rest are all 75->144Hz as they were all cheapish.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-10-06T20:38:44+00:00

    I have been having this exact problem, only that I didn't know the cause. After reading complains on here, I tried other apps and realised it was peculiar to Microsoft Office apps, especially Excel.

    To all still having this issue, I think the best and fastest way to temporarily (only Microsoft can solve permanently) solve this is to:

    Windows 10 (you can check how to on lower OS)

    1. Go to advanced system settings
    2. Click on "advanced" tab.
    3. Click "performance settings".
    4. Uncheck "show windows content while dragging".
    5. Click "apply" and then "OK".
    6. Drag the excel window again, I bet your live just got easier. Smiles.

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  3. 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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  4. Anonymous
    2018-09-16T20:40:01+00:00

    I also have this problem and only with excel. if i plug the laptop it disappears.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-06-12T06:49:13+00:00

    Hi Jeremy,

    If the issue persists, please provide your Windows OS for us following my steps above. Also, could you please record a video of the issue for us? We may need to escalate the case to our related team for further troubleshooting with the video. To collect the video, I have sent you a private message.

    Thanks,

    Ran

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