Excel Freaking Out!

[jerichardson]

I posted about this previously but there are a couple details that are slightly different.

This is what's happening.

1. The user will open 2 - 3 excel spreadsheets.
2. When the user alt-tabs between the spreadsheets a couple of times it will either paste the next spreadsheets information on top of the current one, or just blank out part of the page

Double Pasting:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z262/je_richardson/ExcelWeird2.jpg

Blanking Out:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z262/je_richardson/blankscreen.jpg

Here's what I've done:
-Started on Office 2003, we upgraded to Office 2007
-Turned down hardware accelerating
-Increase RAM
-Replaced motherboard and video card
-Replaced RAM
-Reloaded OS and re-installed Office 2007 with a different copy
-Replaced the laptop with a Dell Latitude D810


Here's what I know:
-This doesn't always happen on the same couple of spreadsheets
-There is no real hardware consistancies between the two machines, one used an integraded Intel chipset and the current one uses an ATI mobile x600
-I've tested on 3 other machines in the office using similar spreadsheets and none of them will reproduce it
-The new laptop worked fine for a week until he, for only a short period, used both the laptop screen and a separate LCD monitor on his docking station. Usually he only uses the external monitor while at work on the docking station and then the laptop screen at home. It acts up on both screens.



Anyone have any ideas?

 

[SkipVought]

Sticky laptop keys? Maybe replace the keyboard.

Skip,
[sub]
Have you heard that the roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was...
Sir Cumference![/sub]

 

[AnotherHiggins]

My first thought is to wonder how large the Workbooks that they have open are. But you indicated that it only happens to a couple of users, and that it isn't just a few particular spreadsheets that cause problems.

These types of screen artifacts definitely make me think there's a memory problem - but Excel might not be the culprit. Are there any applications that only this user (or these users) run? Say, for example, that they're downloading several movies via bittorrent while working on three sizable workbooks - that could cause a problem.

When this is happening:

Go to the Task Manager
[tab]* What does the CPU Usage History look like on the performance tab?
[tab]* On the Processes tab, click on Mem Usage to sort descending. What applications are taking the most resources? How much are they taking?
[tab]* On the Applications tab, are all tasks showing Running? How many tasks are running at the time of the problem?

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[jerichardson]

The workbooks he was using when those screenshots were taken were both less than 1MB. And the only other application that I noticed being open was Outlook.

Also, there aren't any other users with this problem. I saw you said something about other users, so I'll clarify. It's only 1 user. Other users have used the same spreadsheets and don't report any problems. I've tried it on multiple machines and no problems.

What strikes me the most odd, and is almost, but not quite, ruling out hardware is the fact that he's using a completely different laptop now. The Latitude 800 series is a pretty decent rig.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

OK, one user. This line confused me: "no real hardware consistancies between the two machines".

But this is even better from a troubleshooting standpoint.

Only one user, and he has the same problem on two different machines....

Well it has to come down to the user, doesn't it?

Either something in his settings or something he is doing. You didn't say how his resources looked in the task manager when this happened.

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[xlhelp]

Tell him to use - Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+F6 or Shift+Ctrl+Tab or Shift+Ctrl+F6 and see if the problem stops.

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[jerichardson]

What do those do?

Also, I wanted to note something that I just discovered before my break. He has some custom settings both in Excel and Windows.

He has a folders menu that autohides on the left side of his creen for windows and he has custom font sizes.

In Excel he has custom buttons in the top of Excel above the ribbon.

I'll try that different means of alt-tabbing.

 

[xlhelp]

Custom Button in the top left are Microsoft's way of adding more buttons to the "Toolbar"

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[AnotherHiggins]

[ignore][Ctrl]+[Tab] switches between all open workbooks. Similar to [Alt]+[Tab][/ignore], but only for the active application. Works throughout office and in many other applications. In Firefox and (I'm pretty sure) IE7 it switches between tabs.

For what it's worth, I have a custom toolbar with several custom buttons on it. That alone shouldn't cause problems. But it could.

You could try moving or renaming the extension on his .xlb file (don't delete it - if it isn't the problem you'll want to be able to easily restore it). That's where toolbar settings are stored. That file can sometimes become corrupt and cause problems. I've never heard of it causing this problem, and I'd definitely check Task Manager for other culprits first, but that could be work checking.

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[jerichardson]

I checked the Task Manager. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.

Where is the .xlb file?

 

[AnotherHiggins]

It might be slightly different for Excel 2007, but this is the default location for 2003:

C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\

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[jerichardson]

Sweet, Thanks!

 

[xlhelp]

Also look for Excel.qat besides the xlb file. Same dog, different name.

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[jerichardson]

Ok, so I did some more testing today and here's what I found:

1. when he uses the CTRL + Tab then it doesn't seem to do it at all. Which is great except when he has 5+ excel windows open and he has to scroll through all of them.

2. we closed all programs but Excel and the problem still happened.

3. I had him get rid of the folder pane that auto-hides on the left side of his desktop, still no change.

4. I logged in to my profile and tried the same spreadsheets he was using. The problem still happened. Remember, this is a new machine with completely new hardware and it's still doing this.

By those, I think I've excluded the possibility of it being a profile based issue but now I'm still kind of stuck. I found out he was still set in portable/laptop settings and was only running at about 780Mhz out of 1.86Ghz so I changed that and it seems to be better. It still has minor flickers but doesn't just completely "forget" to display parts of information like before.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Two different profiles - that's not the problem
Two different machines - not a hardware problem

One constant in both situations is this guy - both machines were his.

Does he have any software loaded that other folks don't use? Any peripherals that other folks don't use?

There must be something about both computers that he has used that is different than the other computers in the company.


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[xlhelp]

My solution for most ailments is changing acceleration one notch.

Control Panel --> Display --> Settings --> Advanced --> Troubleshoot

Try it, it may be the answer.

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[jerichardson]

Tried that in my original post, didn't make a differenct unfortunately. We actually ended up giving him another laptop. This one is a centrino duo so hopefully it will work better.

Thanks for all of the help!

 

[xlhelp]

Ok, I did read that previously. But, old fogeys forget things fast.

BTW, I did not know this, but if you let go of ALT key before you let go of the TAB key, Excel does weird things like you described.

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[jerichardson]

Just in case anyone else encounters this, the problem ended up being with his Microsoft Intellipoint Mouse with the latest 6.2 drivers. Everything worked fine until he installed that. Uninstalled it and it works fine again. Weird but true!

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Crazy.

But then why would anyone expect one microsoft product to play well with another?

Thanks for posting back with the solution.

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