EXCEL 2007 VERY SLOW WITH LARGE DATA CHARTS

[Guest]

I have spreadsheets going easily from 16000 to 64000 lines, I used to make
EXCEL 2003 charts by using 3-4 worksheets easily. They were big but ran very
fast. EXCEL 2007 is simply very slow, even if I try to do a chart from
scratch.

Simple line charts, scatter points nothing graphically demanding and my
computer is a P4 full of memory.

Anybody out there with the same problem?

Norm

 

[Jon Peltier]

A lot of people have reported similar problems.

- Jon

 

[Guest]

I've also been very frustrated with the very slow charting of 2007 with
vista. I've had to spend a lot of time modifying my macros to eliminate
"select" because it drives a lot of cpu. One trick I've found that works is
to put the graphs in a row and then "hide" the row while I generate the
graphs with the macros. Once the graphs are created/modified with the macros
I then "unhide" the row/graph. It speeds up the time greatly

 

[Jon Peltier]

Disable screen updating, and remove the selection from your code. I can
imagine setting the chart height to zero while working on it will have
unexpected consequences.

- Jon

 

[Guest]

I failed to mention that I had previously turned off screen updating which
helped as the macro moved from various pages but it continues to redraw the
graph as the macro executes on that page. I need to "select the plots" to
have the macros calculate the min and max I need. For lack of any thing else
to try I used the hide feature. I have one PC with XP with both Excel 2000
and 2007 and ran run side by side comparisons with Excel 2000 which runs the
plots in less than a second whereas with 2007 it takes 15 seconds per plot.

Another problem I've seen is the following: I have another PC with Vista
which also has both 2000 and 2007 Excel. If I try to load the Excel 2000
file (which works fine on the XP version) on a Vista machine it errors
out...don't know why. Both PC's have plenty capacity and speed with duo
processors. thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Jon Peltier]

I need to "select the plots" to have the macros calculate the min and max

I need.

In general, you do not need to select anything. This gets an axis minimum
from an unselected chart on a not necessarily active sheet in a not
necessarily active workbook:

Workbooks("Book1.xls).Worksheets("Sheet1").ChartObjects(1).Chart.Axes(xlValue,
xlPrimary).MinimumScale

- Jon

 

[jadbal]

I found this hotfix description which addressed the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938538/en-us
I contacted customer support to get the file and they sent me here:
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix
Used 938538 for the KB Article Number and X86 for the platform. I'm
awaiting a response...

-Albert

 

[morthner]

I've also been very frustrated with the very slow charting of 2007 with
vista. I've had to spend a lot of time modifying my macros to eliminate
"select" because it drives a lot of cpu. One trick I've found that works is
to put the graphs in a row and then "hide" the row while I generate the
graphs with the macros. Once the graphs are created/modified with the macros
I then "unhide" the row/graph. It speeds up the time greatly

I have the exact same problem that is so FRUSTRATING!!! I used to
make plots with a string of 30K points from a text file with no
problem in 2003. I have tried 3 machines with XP and VISTA with tons
of ram and cpu speed and it takes 30 secs to plot 10K of data. Any
change with take about 15 to 20 secs which is unacceptable. This is a
major step backward I will use open office. Any other solutions?


Mike O

 

[Guest]

jadbal, I downloaded the hotfix and it appears to have solved the problem. I
only wish I had this fix before I spent all those hours trying to speed up
the macros. Thanks for the help, do you know if MS will provide this fix to
others....it's a serious problem. thanks again, halfpint

 

[Fred]

I have same problem with large data sets. In earlier Excel versions, they
ran just fine, but in Excel 2007, the program chokes up: e.g., I try to do a
'search-and--replace' in one column, and the systems freezes for a minute
(showing "not responding" in the banner); e.g., I try deleting a column at
the very end of the spreadsheet, and the program freezes, then crashes. I'm
running Excel 2007 on both my desktop and laptop (pretty new PC's with tons
of power and storage), and am having identical problems.

Worst of all, I can't find any helpful hints on the internet to deal with
this. As it stands, Excel 2007 is pretty useless for my needs, and I'll have
to get back to an earlier version. So much for the much-touted million-row
expansion ...

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Fred

Do you have Google Desktop loaded on these machines?
If so, go to Control Panel>Programs and Features>Remove Google Desktop.

It can be a real killer with Excel 2007.

 

[Bob Flanagan]

Fred, did you do the SP1 upgrade to 2007?

Bob

I have same problem with large data sets. In earlier Excel versions, they
ran just fine, but in Excel 2007, the program chokes up: e.g., I try to
do a
'search-and--replace' in one column, and the systems freezes for a minute
(showing "not responding" in the banner); e.g., I try deleting a column
at
the very end of the spreadsheet, and the program freezes, then crashes.
I'm
running Excel 2007 on both my desktop and laptop (pretty new PC's with
tons
of power and storage), and am having identical problems.

Worst of all, I can't find any helpful hints on the internet to deal with
this. As it stands, Excel 2007 is pretty useless for my needs, and I'll
have
to get back to an earlier version. So much for the much-touted
million-row
expansion ...

 

[Fred]

Hi Roger --

Thanks for your suggestion. Indeed, Google Desktop is causing the
problem. As soon as I uninstalled it, Excel 2007 was working fine.
LOTS OF THANKS.

Best,
FredW

 

[Joelle]

I experience extreme slowness when cutting & pasting and inserting/deleting
rows. My worksheet is only 100 rows x 8 columns. And I do not have Google
Desktop installed. Can anyone offer any help? Thank you very much.

 

[Larry]

I to am experiencing seriously slow response times when I do just about
anything in Excel 2007. I just started having this problem about 2 months
ago and found that it started at about the time that SP2 was installed. I
have attempted to unistall it but it does not seem to make a difference.

 

[Jimmy Fred]

I am experiencing the same problem as Joelle. It hasn't always been this
slow. It is slow with all types of speadsheets (large, small, complex,
simple, new, old, etc.) Copy/Paste is particularly slow. Blue circle seems
to spin for ever on "copy" and then again on "paste". I do not have Google
desktop installed.

 

[for east]

I am experiencing similar problem. The Excel is frustratingly sloww on
editing data series. Each of my data series is about 1200 points long
and it is just a pain for the excel to open the dialog to let the data
series be formated, not to mention if I want to change color or
anything about it. I had intended to include about 18 lines in one
chart. It is not a way to go. Right now there is 9 of them and it
seems to be over every limit of the Excel.

.

I am bit surprised, I needed this time to work with Excel, for I need
to share my data with some colleges abroad, usually I am working with
another program (Sigmaplot) and I never realized it could take any
computer time to calculate such plots, not to mention, the calculating
program would have problem to just respond.

In the end right now Excel even fails to open the dialog, after five
attempts i did, the particular data series simply drops off the effort
to have the dialog be opened. The CPU time usage drops to zero like if
my command would fulfilled, but the dialog is nowhere (this is after
about 5 min of CPU laborious attempts).

Just frustrating program

 

[Gary Keramidas]

i can tell you that performance is a big emphasis in 2010. i've submitted a few
examples they're using in their test suite.

download the beta and give it a shot.

 

[Peter M]

I have recently upgraded to Office 2007 and have many Excel 2003 files with
several charts on a single worksheet which take forever to open and display
in Excel 2007, sometimes it just locks up and I need to restart Excel.

I also run Macros to update the data in hidden worksheets and Excel 2007 is
so slow to update both the data and the charts.

Any suggestions? I have SP2 loaded so I am assuming I have all the latest
Hot Fixes and I dont have Google Desktop on

 

[Gary Keramidas]

if you have the capability, download the x86 version of office 2010 and see
if there is an improvement. charting was very slow in excel 2007, as were
many other things.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx