Excel Staggeringly Slow

[rugnaorp]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I have an absolutely mammoth dataset I'm trying to work with that brings my computer to its knees: 61 rows and six columns.

When I copy one of those columns, paste special as values, and then try to convert the pasted column from "number stored as text" to a plain old number, Excel beachballs for ten or fifteen minutes. I don't know how long it will sit like that since that's as long as my patience can endure. I know this is a complicated operation (some of the numbers are as many as two integer digits!!!), but I don't think it should take this long -- given the amount of data maybe it should take five minutes, but not more than fifteen! Do I need a faster processor that can handle more rows? Right now I'm only using a 2.2 GHz Core2Duo. Maybe I should upgrade to a quad core?

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Can Excel 2008 just not handle this kind of serious number crunching? I think I'll end up just writing a perl script to do the calculation, or maybe do it by hand...even though it seems like Excel should be able to manage it.

Suggestions??

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel
I have an absolutely mammoth dataset I'm trying to work with that brings
my computer to its knees: 61 rows and six columns.

When I copy one of those columns, paste special as values, and then try
to convert the pasted column from "number stored as text" to a plain old
number, Excel beachballs for ten or fifteen minutes. I don't know how
long it will sit like that since that's as long as my patience can
endure. I know this is a complicated operation (some of the numbers are
as many as two integer digits!!!), but I don't think it should take this
long -- given the amount of data maybe it should take five minutes, but
not more than fifteen! Do I need a faster processor that can handle more
rows? Right now I'm only using a 2.2 GHz Core2Duo. Maybe I should
upgrade to a quad core?

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Can Excel 2008 just not handle this
kind of serious number crunching? I think I'll end up just writing a
perl script to do the calculation, or maybe do it by hand...even though
it seems like Excel should be able to manage it.

Suggestions??

Hi,

I might be up for trying this workbook on my computer. If you look at my
email address substitute Hotmail for WarmerThanWarm mail in the address
and send a copy to me (delete any personal information first, please).

-Jim

 

[Mungo]

> > Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel
> > I have an absolutely mammoth dataset I'm trying to work with that brings
> > my computer to its knees: 61 rows and six columns.
> >
> > When I copy one of those columns, paste special as values, and then try
> > to convert the pasted column from "number stored as text" to a plain old
> > number, Excel beachballs for ten or fifteen minutes. I don't know how
> > long it will sit like that since that's as long as my patience can
> > endure. I know this is a complicated operation (some of the numbers are
> > as many as two integer digits!!!), but I don't think it should take this
> > long -- given the amount of data maybe it should take five minutes, but
> > not more than fifteen! Do I need a faster processor that can handle more
> > rows? Right now I'm only using a 2.2 GHz Core2Duo. Maybe I should
> > upgrade to a quad core?
> >
> > Is there something I'm doing wrong? Can Excel 2008 just not handle this
> > kind of serious number crunching? I think I'll end up just writing a
> > perl script to do the calculation, or maybe do it by hand...even though
> > it seems like Excel should be able to manage it.
> >
> > Suggestions??

>
> Hi,
>
> I might be up for trying this workbook on my computer. If you look at my
> email address substitute Hotmail for WarmerThanWarm mail in the address
> and send a copy to me (delete any personal information first, please).
>
> -Jim
>
> --
> Jim Gordon
> Mac MVP
> Co-author of Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies
> http://tinyurl.com/Office-2008-for-Dummies
>

if you resolve this (or find out the error) can you post a response on this site so we can all be the wiser.

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

if you resolve this (or find out the error) can you post a response on
this site so we can all be the wiser.

Thank you for sending the workbook.

On one of my computers I find that the problem does not reproduce. Will
try two others tomorrow.

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Thank you for sending the workbook.

On one of my computers I find that the problem does not reproduce. Will
try two others tomorrow.

-Jim

Second computer also did not reproduce this problem. Off-line you
discovered that the problem mysteriously went away on its own on your
computer. It could have been a temporary memory issue on your computer
at the time.

-Jim