Excel 2007 and Resources

[Ron Rosenfeld]

I'm not sure of all the variables to reproduce this issue, but after leaving
Excel 2007 open and minimized for a while (perhaps 1+ hours) when I try to
restore it and work on an existing or new workbook, the display is abnormal;
and eventually I will get a message along the line of "not enough system
resources to display completely".

Outlook 2007 will be working OK.

If I close Excel and reopen it, it will work OK.

Looking at older messages and Google, I see this message may occur while
working on complex workbooks. However, in my case, the message and problem may
occur even with just one very simple workbook open -- by simple I mean the
workbook might just have a few constants in a few cells; and perhaps some very
simple formulas.

I haven't tried this with just Excel and no workbooks open (other than the
add-ins).

I'm pretty sure I've kept up with upgrades for Windows; Office; video driver;
etc.

I have 445 GB free space on my C: drive
2 GB RAM
Intel Core 2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66GHz

Windows XP Pro SP2
Excel 2007 SP1

Any thoughts?
--ron

 

[Jon Peltier]

Ron -

I've seen this on occasion. I run Excel 2007 in two situations: (a) an old
laptop with ancient resources, and (b) in various virtual machines with
limited resources. I never bothered searching for further information,
figuring that the lack of resources was the cause. Since I don't really use
Excel 2007 in battle yet, I have no real need to figure it out.

- Jon

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

Ron -

I've seen this on occasion. I run Excel 2007 in two situations: (a) an old
laptop with ancient resources, and (b) in various virtual machines with
limited resources. I never bothered searching for further information,
figuring that the lack of resources was the cause. Since I don't really use
Excel 2007 in battle yet, I have no real need to figure it out.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______

Well, I'll keep trying to see if I see anything that gives me a clue.

It could be something only peripherally related, like a video card setting. I
disabled "write combining" and we'll see what happens.
--ron

 

[Jon Peltier]

Video card, printer driver, what you ate for breakfast. Who knows what
causes this behavior?

- Jon

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

Video card, printer driver, what you ate for breakfast. Who knows what
causes this behavior?

- Jon

It seems to be working OK now with "write combine" disabled on my video card.
(But I had no problems in this regard with 2003).

Oh well, who knows. <sigh>
--ron

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

I'm not sure of all the variables to reproduce this issue, but after leaving
Excel 2007 open and minimized for a while (perhaps 1+ hours) when I try to
restore it and work on an existing or new workbook, the display is abnormal;
and eventually I will get a message along the line of "not enough system
resources to display completely".

Outlook 2007 will be working OK.

If I close Excel and reopen it, it will work OK.

Looking at older messages and Google, I see this message may occur while
working on complex workbooks. However, in my case, the message and problem may
occur even with just one very simple workbook open -- by simple I mean the
workbook might just have a few constants in a few cells; and perhaps some very
simple formulas.

I haven't tried this with just Excel and no workbooks open (other than the
add-ins).

I'm pretty sure I've kept up with upgrades for Windows; Office; video driver;
etc.

I have 445 GB free space on my C: drive
2 GB RAM
Intel Core 2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66GHz

Windows XP Pro SP2
Excel 2007 SP1

Any thoughts?
--ron

Here is some followup on this problem, for anyone else who might be interested.

Disabling write combine on my video card initially seemed to improve the
situation, but the problem recurred, so the change may have been merely
fortuitous.

On the EVGA web site (my nVidia card manufacturer), I noted they recommend a
particular BIOS setting (motherboard BIOS) for the PCI Latency Timer of 128.
Mine had been set to the default of 32. I changed it to 128 and, at least so
far, under circumstances that would have resulted in an abnormal display
previously, things seem to be working OK.

I will try this for a few days and, if the improvement persists, re-enable
write combining.

--ron