New job using excel 2007

[Dan71]

Hi all. I have just started a new job and now am using Excel 2007. I am finding that my PC is crashing quite a lot and runing very slowly. My PC is an HP Compaq with an Intel core2 CPU running at 1.86 Ghz with 1.97 Gb of RAM. IS this the problem? Do I need to be demanding a faster PC.

Thanks

Dan

 

[Norie]

Dan

I'm pretty sure the problem isn't the specification/speed of your PC.

I can't recall exactly what the required specification is for Excel 2007 but I'm pretty sure what you have exceeds it by quite a bit.

 

[Dan71]

Thanks for getting back to me. I might try and get a faster one any way. Your PC can never be too fast, can it!!

 

[RoryA]

More RAM would be useful - Excel 2007 can use quite a lot.

 

[Dan71]

Thanks

 

[RoryA]

And make sure you have all SPs and patches installed. The initial release was, um, a little buggy...

 

[Derek Brown]

It is not your PC specification as it is the same as my work PC and better than my own PC - both of which I have used to open and work with a 25Mb workbook. That workbook was not designed as best it could as it was a short-term emergency implementation. Re-calculation was rather slow because of the extensive use of INDIRECT but I created a solution for that.

I would suggest that you investigate further to work out what is going on. Do yo need to defrag the disk (speed)? Are formulas inefficient (speed - see recent board questions and http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442280)? What is the workbook doing when the PC crashes - calculating, macro?

On one occasion in the past I had a memory fault on my PC. It worked OK most of the time but crashed occasionally. I downloaded a memory checker that highlighted the faulty memory locations.

 

[Dan71]

Thanks for the advice. Lots of the workbooks I have inherited are not as well designed as they could be!! I am going to be working an them over the next couple of weeks.

I have a new PC again today. It only has 1G of RAM so am going to ask for an upgrade. How much should I be asking for?

Also, the patches etc. How do I tell what I have/ what I need to update or down load.

Thanks

 

[RoryA]

I would ask for 2GB (possibly more, depending on the OS). RAM is dirt cheap these days anyway.
If you click the Office button, Excel Options, then the Resources section, you can check for updates from there. You want Service Pack2 installed at least!