WFH issues especially Excel, getting desperate

[RandomMess]

When I WFH it's frankly crap especially with Excel. Struggle to highlight cells even, moving emails between folders etc etc. It's at the point I can't really WFH as its so slow and frustrating.

IT support at work are stumped/clueless.

Could it just be my internet isn't fast enough and I need to upgrade to ultra - I am so reluctant to do this if that isn't the problem.

At work everything is saved on ShitPoint - sorry SharePoint and I honestly think that could be part of the issue as it's constantly having to communicate with the network. We have HP Elitebooks, also possibly a bit shit? At home I even use an ethernet cable.

Of course DH has none of these issues, he works elsewhere and not based on Shit Point and relies on the Wifi.

Desperate plea for help here. TIA

It won't solve your problem but to make it easier to cope have you turned off auto save and put formulas on manual update?

Those speeds aren’t great. When did you last re-start your router? Have you asked your broadband provider to run a line test?

This. Plus check if your laptop needs any updates. Most it departments will only issue essential updates for software, whereas the laptop itself, drivers etc. will also need updating. So for example if you have a Lenovo, in the search box at the bottom, type in Lenovo and it will present you with the update centre for your laptop manufacturer. Open it and check for updates, especially essential ones.

If your internet provider says you should be getting better speeds consider upgrading your router. Phone them too, they will be able to check some things and may send you a booster for free. The router should be high up in a room and not in a cupboard or behind a telly etc. as these will interfere with the signal. You can also boost signal a little by putting foil between the router and the outside wall/the direction you don't want signal to travel (as signal is coming out like an orb from most routers), like an open sided Faraday cage.

When you're working from home are you a long way from your router or nearby? If you take your laptop, sit right next to the router and do another fast.com speed test, do you get a noticeably better result?

That's not a great idea if you're using the spreadsheet via Sharepoint and other people are accessing it too.

Thanks for all the advice.

Seeing as though I use an Ethernet cable and have done everything else suggested I will bite the bullet and upgrade. It's BT ultrafast cables that were put in a coupe of years ago I can upgrade to.

Just annoying when DH (2nd line IT support) has no issues using the current one.

I agree how frustrating SP can be, at times the interface for sharing etc is baffling.

I also happen to work on huge excel files (>90GB) in Chrome, which can be unresponsive at times, but this is due to massively complex formulas (my fault I wrote it).

Unless I missed it, how big are the files you're working on, and what connection speed are you getting?

@Dbank yeah lots of complex formula that I wrote, basically having to try create a database 🙄

I think it's the upload which often drops to only 5. Cos of course SP is constantly saving it back.

If I upgrade to ultra and it doesn't fix the issue not sure of the way forward. Need to WFH more to be away from crap boss to lower my stress.

Unless I missed it, how big are the files you're working on, and what connection speed are you getting?

If your DH is working OK, then it can only be one of 2 things:

1. Your broadband speed is not sufficient to support your IT infrastructure (e.g. SharePoint) or
2. An issue with your laptop.

You mentioned moving pages in Chrome is also slow/problematic - to me this points to 2) rather than 1).

Do you know how much RAM you have in your laptop? Run Task Manager and look in the Performance tab, and click on Memory. It might be simply a need for more RAM.

@AnotherOneGone I'm on my 2nd laptop and it's just the same. I'll try to remember to look at the RAM tomorrow.

Fibre has been ordered.

@AnotherOneGone on task manager with outlook and my main spreadsheet open memory is at 55% usage 8.7/15.7GB if I open a 2nd (very basic one) it goes up to around 59%

One of my chunky spreadsheets is 8 MB.

Have both chunky ones open doesn't impact on Memory usage though?

Did you ever get this sorted?
It sounds like you need your laptop 'rebuilt'
It wasn't configured correctly.

The last day before we got broadband fitted it was absolutely fine 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

We now have broadband so let's see if it starts happening again.