can't get excel to calculate

[Jack]

I use Excel a lot and know how to get sheets to calculate. I also know how
to suspend calculations and how to manually kick them off using F9. However,
I have a big sheet (about 125Mb) that won't finish calculating. Auto
calculating is turned on but the word "calculate" still appears on the bottom
of the worksheet. When I click F9, the "calculate" goes away and to the left
the words "calculating cells 0%" appear for about 2 seconds and then go away.
After "calculating cells 0%", the word "calculate" appears again! I've
probably hit F9 about 100 times and it wno't clear the "calulate" from the
sheet! As a test, I moved the entire contents of the worksheet to a new
workbook but got the same results. I also tested deleting everything from
the sheet an also got the same results. Does anyone know what's wrong?!?!
Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Biff]

Do you have any intentional (or maybe accidental!) circular references?

If you set iteration before you set the circ ref you won't get a circular
reference warning but "calculate" will stay visible on the status bar.

You don't say that the calculation progress just stalls and hangs. You just
say the word calculate always shows in the status bar.

That's the only idea I have!

Biff