Excel running extremely slow on networked computer

PGL

At work I find that excel runs extremely slow for me when I am connected to the server. However when I disconnect the network cable, it runs perfectly smoothly. Our IT guy understands that excel and networks do not work well together and is trying to come up with a solution.

This problem is really driving me up the wall, so does anyone here know how to sort this out?

cheers

Cuddlesworth

PGL wrote: »

At work I find that excel runs extremely slow for me when I am connected to the server. However when I disconnect the network cable, it runs perfectly smoothly. Our IT guy understands that excel and networks do not work well together and is trying to come up with a solution.

This problem is really driving me up the wall, so does anyone here know how to sort this out?

cheers

I'm sorry but I don't understand. Are you saying that working off a excel file stored on a server is slow, but working off of a excel file stored on the desktop is fast. Or are you saying while working when your network cable is plugged in your machine runs incredibly slow?

Quandary

Hello,

If you are opening an excel document(especially really big docs) which is not locally available on your laptop/pc then you can have serious slow down and hanging issues. If the excel doc is sitting in a mapped network drive (shared drive/folder) on the server then i would recommend taking a copy of it and saving it onto your own C drive, edit it whatever way you need to and then copy it back into the shared folder on the server. I would defo run this by your IT guy to make sure you have permissions to do this first though.

When you edit a big excel doc locally on your own machine you will notice a big improvement!

best of luck...

PGL

guys

excel runs slow for me regardless of location of file (hard drive or server) or size when the network cable is plugged in. it is simply not practical for me to start copying all excel files off the server onto harddrive, plug out cable, make amendments, plug in cable, save on server etc etc, as all files need to be stored on the network in the first place. also i mostly use excel files.

cheers for your suggestions guys, but i need a solution for this as opposed to a workaround

cheers

Quandary

PGL wrote: »

guys

excel runs slow for me regardless of location of file (hard drive or server) or size when the network cable is plugged in. it is simply not practical for me to start copying all excel files off the server onto harddrive, plug out cable, make amendments, plug in cable, save on server etc etc, as all files need to be stored on the network in the first place. also i mostly use excel files.

cheers for your suggestions guys, but i need a solution for this as opposed to a workaround

cheers

My suggestion didnt require you unplugging the net cable at all. I was a sys admin for 5 years and we always had excel issues in server shares but only when accessing really big/complex files.

If you are experiencing this problem with all excel files regardless of size then there must be a config issue on your pc/laptop.

Do the same problems occur with other people in the office and if so is it always the same excel docs that cause the problem? - im sure your IT person is aware of this if it is the case and is probably tring to come up with a solution.

As a test you could ask your IT person to create a share for you alone on a different server, copy one or 2 of the documents you usually have problems with into the share and then map the share on your pc - also try creating one or 2 test excel docs in the share and accessing them. If you still experience the problems i would imagine the issue is with your pc/laptop and not the server. This would help your IT person identify the problem quicker.

best of luck...

Enigma IE

PGL wrote: »

Our IT guy understands that excel and networks do not work well together and is trying to come up with a solution.

I have been working in IT for nearly 13 years and this is one of the most bizarre statements I've ever heard. Your IT guy is responsible to figure out exactly why Excel is unusable when you physically connect your machine to the network.

A couple of questions I would have:

Does this problem affect other users?
Does this problem affect other applications?

What type of problems are you having in Excel? Opening / saving / closing files?

What other applications are have you got open at the same time?

Have you or your IT guy checked Windows Task Manager while you are experiencing the issue?

What is the memory usage like? What is the processor usage?

I would suggest querying all of the above with your IT guy. The problem may not even be Excel related.

Once you connect to a network, any other application, user or related hardware could adversely affect performance on your machine. The speed of your network, performance on your server, the list goes on.

Cuddlesworth

Enigma IE wrote: »

I have been working in IT for nearly 13 years and this is one of the most bizarre statements I've ever heard. Your IT guy is responsible to figure out exactly why Excel is unusable when you physically connect your machine to the network.

A couple of questions I would have:

Does this problem affect other users?
Does this problem affect other applications?

What type of problems are you having in Excel? Opening / saving / closing files?

What other applications are have you got open at the same time?

Have you or your IT guy checked Windows Task Manager while you are experiencing the issue?

What is the memory usage like? What is the processor usage?

I would suggest querying all of the above with your IT guy. The problem may not even be Excel related.

Once you connect to a network, any other application, user or related hardware could adversely affect performance on your machine. The speed of your network, performance on your server, the list goes on.

All spot on. That original comment struck me as describing a symptom as the problem. And your "IT guy" is a moron for not spotting it.

DublinWriter

PGL wrote: »

Our IT guy understands that excel and networks do not work well together...

No disrespect meant, but I don't think your IT guy understands much.

Is your copy of Excel trying to autorun macro/vb for apps code on launching that rely on a network resource?

PGL

guys. many thanks for the interest that this has generated!

As i have explained in two seperate posts, the problems start when the network cable is plugged in. size or file location, together with other applications in use are not the issue. furthermore all other all other applications tend to go much slower when the cable is plugged in, but excel is the main culprit. this problem also occurs for others in the office.

i am not speaking for or defending our IT person (not full time or inhouse by the way), but some of you fellow IT experts need to read my posts (which explained the problem), and show some form of fellowship towards your peers before using terms such as moron etc. He is in the process of coming up with a solution and I will pass on your suggestions.

cheers

kippy

PGL wrote: »

guys. many thanks for the interest that this has generated!

As i have explained in two seperate posts, the problems start when the network cable is plugged in. size or file location, together with other applications in use are not the issue. furthermore all other all other applications tend to go much slower when the cable is plugged in, but excel is the main culprit. this problem also occurs for others in the office.

i am not speaking for or defending our IT person (not full time or inhouse by the way), but some of you fellow IT experts need to read my posts (which explained the problem), and show some form of fellowship towards your peers before using terms such as moron etc. He is in the process of coming up with a solution and I will pass on your suggestions.

cheers

In all fairness, saying excel and networks do not work well together is not correct....otherwise most corporates wouldnt be using Excel at all........
I get the issue you are having but as others have posted more information may be needed.....
However the issue may be related to an addon in excel hosted on a server share that is no longer available, mapped network drives that are no longer in existence, a virus or downloader at work on your PC, antivirus software which may be corrupt, mapped printers that are no longer on the network DNS/IP issues, GPO issues (if they are relevant for your environment, and as you mention it appears to happen other users as well).....

DublinWriter

PGL wrote: »

i am not speaking for or defending our IT person (not full time or inhouse by the way), but some of you fellow IT experts need to read my posts (which explained the problem), and show some form of fellowship towards your peers before using terms such as moron etc.

All I can say is god bless your patience and loyalty regarding your 'IT guy'.

As for explaining your problem, it's a little equivalent to driving your car into a garage and saying "when I turn they key in the ignition, I get a problem, otherwise the vehicle is fine".

Cuddlesworth

PGL wrote: »

i am not speaking for or defending our IT person (not full time or inhouse by the way), but some of you fellow IT experts need to read my posts (which explained the problem), and show some form of fellowship towards your peers before using terms such as moron etc. He is in the process of coming up with a solution and I will pass on your suggestions.

What we are trying to say is you clearly have a pretty bad application that is mauling computer resources when the network link is active and excel has nothing to do with it. Saying to you that excel and networks don't go together is either appeasement or ignorance.

With access to your computer I could tell you in about 60 seconds what is causing this and work towards a solution.

But since you answered the other questions here is the main points you should look at.

Enigma IE wrote: »

Have you or your IT guy checked Windows Task Manager while you are experiencing the issue?

What is the memory usage like? What is the processor usage?

Oh, and I'm happy to call a spade a spade and a moron a moron.


So lets see if we can do this without him.

What OS are you using(xp/vista/win7)? Or is it windows.

Right click on a empty area of the windows bar at the bottom of the screen and choose task manager. Go to the process tab at the top and click on the cpu to order it from highest usage to lowest usage. Plug in your network cable and post here with the name of the app that is causing the slow down.

seamus

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

What we are trying to say is you clearly have a pretty bad application that is mauling computer resources when the network link is active and excel has nothing to do with it.

That may not be entirely true. It's possible that he has excel add-ins/templates installed from a network location (as others have pointed out), or the spreadsheets he's working on are linked to other network-based spreadsheets. In the latter case, if automatic calculations are enabled, Excel may be refreshing the data from the network-based files every couple of seconds (depending on where he's entering data), which I've seen in the past will cripple the entire machine.
When he plugs out the cable, Excel works off the last set of loaded data and away she flies.

Obviously the indicator here is: Does the entire machine run slowly with the network cable in, or is it only when excel is running? If the problem only occurs when excel is running, then the problem lies somewhere within excel.

He does say that other applications tend to run slowly with the network cable in, but hasn't clarified if excel is running at the same time. If excel isn't running, a common one I've seen cause this kind of issue is Windows Update - which obviously only runs when the machine is connected to a network.

Enigma IE

kippy wrote: »

In all fairness, saying excel and networks do not work well together is not correct....otherwise most corporates wouldnt be using Excel at all........
I get the issue you are having but as others have posted more information may be needed.....
However the issue may be related to an addon in excel hosted on a server share that is no longer available, mapped network drives that are no longer in existence, a virus or downloader at work on your PC, antivirus software which may be corrupt, mapped printers that are no longer on the network DNS/IP issues, GPO issues (if they are relevant for your environment, and as you mention it appears to happen other users as well).....

OP, Kippy has suggested some possible causes of the issue which are worth following up.

Also from your most recent post, your saying pretty much everyone is having problems while connected to the network. Your saying it's worse in Excel, but that may just be perception as this is the application you use heaviest.

It's quite possible you have a fundamental network issue, a bottleneck for example. I suggest investigating the network configuration / speeds, hubs, switches and any other components. Without getting overly technical, there could be all sorts of mismatches in terms of speeds (at device and port level).

Basically, all your networking equipment should be of similar spec and more importantly, operating at same speed, e.g. 10mb or 100mb or 1gb etc.

seamus

Enigma IE wrote: »

Basically, all your networking equipment should be of similar spec and more importantly, operating at same speed, e.g. 10mb or 100mb or 1gb etc.

This is also a distinct possibility but should probably be checked further down the line. Had a similar issue in a place I used to work where some users had painfully slow machines even with a new image, but other people on identical hardware had no problems. Turned out that their ports on the network switches had been manually set to 10Mb (the switches were old and had probably been like that for ten years), as soon as I set it to auto, they were flying along.

Enigma IE

seamus wrote: »

This is also a distinct possibility but should probably be checked further down the line.

Possibly, but if there is a fundamental network issue, debugging at the desktop and/or application layer won't help too much.

Speed and duplex settings need to be investigated!

Kinetic^

If it's happening when you're working on local/network excel file then it's something to do with your own PC. Could be a virus or too many programs running (more ram needed probably).

PGL

Guys

Once again thank you for your time and suggestions. Boards.ie never fails to let me down! I will not take up anymore of your time, but will pass all of your ideas onto our IT person. I will let you know how we get on.

cheers