To what does "Not Responding" on Excel mean?

[rmom93]

I am encountering the above on several occasions (daily...lol) when updating
and saving my Excel files. What does it tell me? I have switched the
calculation options to be "manual" as I thought the nested-ifs on the
worksheet where too many to calculate. Does the limit for nested-ifs on
Excel 2007 apply for one formula or to an entire worksheet? The specific
worksheet is only 415 KB while the workbook is 874 KB; the entire folder is
177 MB. The (c) drive is only 73.8 GB used and 215 GB free space.

Please advise if there are other pertinent data required to resolve this
problem?

 

[JLatham]

"...specific worksheet is only 415 KB ..." Sorry, had to chuckle since I
remember the days that entire applications often had to run on computers with
only 64K of 8 bit memory.. But that doesn't address your question although
it does let you know I'm a dinosaur.

Not Responding usually means that Excel is simply really busy doing
calculations in preparation to save. The nested limit is per formula, not
per sheet. But a lot of nested IF formulas, with several levels of nesting
could take some time to do if they're being done. Excel 2007 is definitely
perceived by many people, including myself, as being slower than earlier
versions, and in some cases it has been proven to be slower. You might
simply try to give Excel more time to get its act together - as much as 10 or
15 minutes even. If your workbook does any charting, it could very
definitely take time for Excel to deal with that. Charting in 2007 is up to
10 times as slow as it was in 2003 for the same chart - I've done those
timing tests myself.

Another problem can occur on newer machines with multi-core CPUs, such as
Intel Core Duo or Quad Core processors, or AMD's X2, X3 and X4 processors.
There appear to be some issues in multi-threading in Excel although to the
best of my knowledge that is an issue dealing with certain commands used
inside of macros. But just in case, if you have a computer with a multi-core
processor, you can force Excel to only use a single core.

In Excel 2007 click the Office Button, choose the [Options] button, then
[Advanced]. Scroll down to the section titled Formulas and either disable
"Enable multi-threaded calculation" or choose the Manual setting for number
of threads to allow and set the CPUs to 1.

 

[rmom93]

Thank you kindly... dinosaur...lol!

Alas...then woe is me. I did what you relayed on the Options "choose the
Manual setting for number of threads to allow and set the CPUs to 1". After,
I tried to time my replicating a single-cell formula down one cell and it has
taken already 20 minutes and it still isn't finished. Excel has popped out a
"cannot show completely due to limited system resources" thingie and I then
just aborted/closed the NOT RESPONDING Excel work. Does this mean I have to
rework my sheets to avoid the nesting ifs? I'm in for a long night then...

Thanks none the less...

"...specific worksheet is only 415 KB ..." Sorry, had to chuckle since I
remember the days that entire applications often had to run on computers with
only 64K of 8 bit memory.. But that doesn't address your question although
it does let you know I'm a dinosaur.

Not Responding usually means that Excel is simply really busy doing
calculations in preparation to save. The nested limit is per formula, not
per sheet. But a lot of nested IF formulas, with several levels of nesting
could take some time to do if they're being done. Excel 2007 is definitely
perceived by many people, including myself, as being slower than earlier
versions, and in some cases it has been proven to be slower. You might
simply try to give Excel more time to get its act together - as much as 10 or
15 minutes even. If your workbook does any charting, it could very
definitely take time for Excel to deal with that. Charting in 2007 is up to
10 times as slow as it was in 2003 for the same chart - I've done those
timing tests myself.

Another problem can occur on newer machines with multi-core CPUs, such as
Intel Core Duo or Quad Core processors, or AMD's X2, X3 and X4 processors.
There appear to be some issues in multi-threading in Excel although to the
best of my knowledge that is an issue dealing with certain commands used
inside of macros. But just in case, if you have a computer with a multi-core
processor, you can force Excel to only use a single core.

In Excel 2007 click the Office Button, choose the [Options] button, then
[Advanced]. Scroll down to the section titled Formulas and either disable
"Enable multi-threaded calculation" or choose the Manual setting for number
of threads to allow and set the CPUs to 1.

I am encountering the above on several occasions (daily...lol) when updating
and saving my Excel files. What does it tell me? I have switched the
calculation options to be "manual" as I thought the nested-ifs on the
worksheet where too many to calculate. Does the limit for nested-ifs on
Excel 2007 apply for one formula or to an entire worksheet? The specific
worksheet is only 415 KB while the workbook is 874 KB; the entire folder is
177 MB. The (c) drive is only 73.8 GB used and 215 GB free space.

Please advise if there are other pertinent data required to resolve this
problem?

 

[JLatham]

Sounds like you may be in for that long night. You might put up one or two
of those formulas here and let people help you in writing them in some other
way to try to get past this problem. Quite often it turns out you can set up
a table of data and use VLOOKUP() to get the same results as a big bunch of
nested IF's.

If you're running out of resources every time you use that workbook,
something has got to be done. Sometimes I wonder if, with Excel 2007, they
didn't give us more potential in the application than the hardware can
handle. Just consider the potential size of a single worksheet: If you put
just one letter in each cell, it would take 16 GB of RAM to hold the
information on the sheet in memory. I have a feeling that such a worksheet
would be a little slow to work with - must try that some day.

Thank you kindly... dinosaur...lol!

Alas...then woe is me. I did what you relayed on the Options "choose the
Manual setting for number of threads to allow and set the CPUs to 1". After,
I tried to time my replicating a single-cell formula down one cell and it has
taken already 20 minutes and it still isn't finished. Excel has popped out a
"cannot show completely due to limited system resources" thingie and I then
just aborted/closed the NOT RESPONDING Excel work. Does this mean I have to
rework my sheets to avoid the nesting ifs? I'm in for a long night then...

Thanks none the less...

"...specific worksheet is only 415 KB ..." Sorry, had to chuckle since I
remember the days that entire applications often had to run on computers with
only 64K of 8 bit memory.. But that doesn't address your question although
it does let you know I'm a dinosaur.

Not Responding usually means that Excel is simply really busy doing
calculations in preparation to save. The nested limit is per formula, not
per sheet. But a lot of nested IF formulas, with several levels of nesting
could take some time to do if they're being done. Excel 2007 is definitely
perceived by many people, including myself, as being slower than earlier
versions, and in some cases it has been proven to be slower. You might
simply try to give Excel more time to get its act together - as much as 10 or
15 minutes even. If your workbook does any charting, it could very
definitely take time for Excel to deal with that. Charting in 2007 is up to
10 times as slow as it was in 2003 for the same chart - I've done those
timing tests myself.

Another problem can occur on newer machines with multi-core CPUs, such as
Intel Core Duo or Quad Core processors, or AMD's X2, X3 and X4 processors.
There appear to be some issues in multi-threading in Excel although to the
best of my knowledge that is an issue dealing with certain commands used
inside of macros. But just in case, if you have a computer with a multi-core
processor, you can force Excel to only use a single core.

In Excel 2007 click the Office Button, choose the [Options] button, then
[Advanced]. Scroll down to the section titled Formulas and either disable
"Enable multi-threaded calculation" or choose the Manual setting for number
of threads to allow and set the CPUs to 1.

I am encountering the above on several occasions (daily...lol) when updating
and saving my Excel files. What does it tell me? I have switched the
calculation options to be "manual" as I thought the nested-ifs on the
worksheet where too many to calculate. Does the limit for nested-ifs on
Excel 2007 apply for one formula or to an entire worksheet? The specific
worksheet is only 415 KB while the workbook is 874 KB; the entire folder is
177 MB. The (c) drive is only 73.8 GB used and 215 GB free space.

Please advise if there are other pertinent data required to resolve this
problem?