PC deterioraton with macro with big sorts

I have an Excel Visual Basis macro that performs 3 or 4 different sorts. I've been testing this macro with a large file as input (about 15000 rows) trying to get the right results for a few days. It seems that my PC performance has steadily degraded to where now it hardly runs the macro - the NT Task Manager shows the Excel program "Not Responding" for long periods of time. I think I "wrecked" an old PC awhile back doing these big sorts, but I thought it was a function of the age and size of the old PC.

The question is --- Can these repetitive sorts of big Excel files cause permanent PC damage???