Internet won't work when I use Excel

[marybaker]

Hello -

I have a MacBook running OS 10.4.10 and I also have Office for Mac
2004, version 11.3.7. I have downloaded all the Mac updates and I
also have updates from Microsoft for Office for Mac, 11.3.5, 11.3.6
and 11.3.7. The problem is that whenever I am on the internet and I
open Excel, then the internet stops responding. I use Safari or
Firefox as a browser and both have this problem. I have wireless for
the internet and the signal is strong. It only happens when I open
Excel while I have Safari or Firefox running. I can't get internet
pages to load, after I've opened Excel, until I close everything and
restart the computer. That's becoming tedious and I wish there was a
way to fix it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Mary

 

[Carl Witthoft]

Hello -

I have a MacBook running OS 10.4.10 and I also have Office for Mac
2004, version 11.3.7. I have downloaded all the Mac updates and I
also have updates from Microsoft for Office for Mac, 11.3.5, 11.3.6
and 11.3.7. The problem is that whenever I am on the internet and I
open Excel, then the internet stops responding. I use Safari or
Firefox as a browser and both have this problem. I have wireless for
the internet and the signal is strong. It only happens when I open
Excel while I have Safari or Firefox running. I can't get internet
pages to load, after I've opened Excel, until I close everything and
restart the computer. That's becoming tedious and I wish there was a
way to fix it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Mary

This is, of course, impossible. That said, I suppose it's possible
that your copy of Office is "phoning home" and getting in some hung loop
that ties up your internet connection. Try sorting thru Excel
preferences and options and see if there's some "Check for Updates" that
can be turned off.

The other thing to do is to open Activity Monitor before booting Excel,
then watch the process list to see what starts up when Excel does.

 

[marybaker]

Hi Mary -

Another thought - although "MacBook" covers a lot of completely different
Mac systems How much RAM does it have? I believe most ship with only 512
MB & if that's all you have it could explain the issue.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

My machine's hardware is this:
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B06
SMC Version: 1.17f0
Serial Number: [snipped]
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

I think that means a gig of RAM, right? I'll also try out Carl
Witthoft's suggestions, but doing that will almost certainly screw my
internet (because it entails opening Excel). I'll report back on the
results.

 

[marybaker]

Alright, it's a mystery. Today Excel and Safari work fine together,
which is different than the last five times I tried it. System
Profiler didn't show anything odd-looking. I'll keep an eye on it and
try to figure out what, exactly, is triggering the internet outages.