Excel CPU Usage

[Jasper Recto]

I have computer that has Windows 2000 with Excel 2000. When the user closes
excel, the CPU usage spikes between 70 and 100%. It stays that way for
about 15 seconds.

After you close Excel, you can't open up anything because the CPU is being
taxed.

This only started about 2 weeks ago and it only does it with Excel.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jasper

 

[JLatham]

I'd start by making sure that Excel is the culprit. Open up the Task Manager
and go to the Processes tab so you can see what processes are using how much
CPU time. Then work with an Excel file that seems to cause the problem and
see if it is Excel or something else bogging down the works. Could be
something other than Excel, such as an almost full hard drive that the system
is having to work hard to find room to save the file to.

If you hadn't said that it only does this with Excel, I might have even
suggested that the behavior might indicate virus operation, or a pending
hardware failure. These are still not things that can be ruled out entirely
at this point. It may be that Excel is using a portion of RAM that is not
often used by other programs, and you have a problem with a RAM chip that has
that area of memory on it.

If it seems that it's Excel and only Excel that's related to this issue, you
might try a repair installation of Office/Excel 2000 and see if that helps
any.

 

[Dave Mills]

Check the size of the excel file. I recently saw one of mine that has the share
workbook facility on grow from 2 MB to 76 MB. When I turned off Sharing and
opened and closed the document it shrank back to just under 2MB. The effect of
having 70MB opening was a long delay in opening and closing the file.

 

[JLatham]

Very good point. I'd been thinking along the lines of "there is some
problem", while you have thought about "things may be working properly - but
the file itself has changed".

 

[Jasper Recto]

The issues is not the size of the files. The files that I've open is less
than a 1MB. Also, it happens when I open a new document. Just the act of
closing Excel causes the CPU usage to spike.

I have checked an this only does it with Excel. Word, Outlook, Access and
other programs don't do this, just Excel.

Thanks,
Jasper

 

[JLatham]

In that case, my original suggestions are still valid.

#1 Use Task Manager to verify what process is using the CPU time when you
shut down Excel. It may not be Excel itself - it could be an add-in within
Excel.
#2 Check the amount of available space on the hard drive you are writing to.
It could be low.
#3 If it is Excel, then using your original Office/Excel 2000 CDs, you
should be able to do a repair installation (basically installing from the CD
using the same settings you originally used). This can cause some updates to
require re-installation after the repairs are complete.
#4 There may be a hardware issue with memory (RAM) involved. A good test
for your memory is Memtest86, available as a free download from:
http://www.memtest86.com/ once you start running it, it will run until you
stop it. The longer you allow it to run, the more opportunity it has to find
a bad memory card. Consider starting it when you leave the office/go to bed
and letting it run overnight.
#5 Least likely since we are only talking about one application being
affected, but not impossible, would be a virus on the machine. Run a full
scan of your system using your installed anti-virus program, plus consider
running some of the on-line tests from sites like (these are all reputable,
good anti-virus companies)

Kaspersky Labs scan (I use KAV products and trust them very much), at
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

eset's product: http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

F-Secure: http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

Trend Micro's Housecall: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

BitDefender scanner: http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

Panda Security's scanner:
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/

and of course, the standard ones provided with most new systems (and thus
the direct targets of many viruses and worms)

Symantec (Norton) :
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym

McAfee: http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp

there are other reliable, reputable ones also, but if you can pass through
those, then you have a clean machine. There are also others that are not so
reputable and will falsly report problems just to sell you their product.
Never take the results of just one site/product's tests as the absolute
gospel.