Excel and black boxes on second monitor

M

MandM

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
873
Excel.jpg

I have a Dell XPS 13 (2015), Windows 10 and an external Samsung U28D590D monitor connected via mini displayport to displayport. The laptop uses a resolution of 3200 x 1800 and the external screen runs at 3840 x1200 (60Hz). This setup works beautifully, except when I use Excel (Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013) on the external screen. I get these black boxes that move as I scroll. It is very irritating, because I need the bigger screen to work with large Excel spreadsheets.

I have tried various suggestions, from repairing the Office installation to disabling scaling for high DPI displays. I have also connected with a normal HDMI cable.

Has anyone else come across this problem? Do you have suggestions that I could try to fix it?
 
A

Arthur

Honorary Master
Joined
Aug 7, 2003
Messages
26,879
Sounds like a video driver glitch/bug. Nothing to do with Windows/Office.

Using the latest video driver? If not, try that. If you are, try an older one.
 
K

Kav33r

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2015
Messages
224
Many people seem to have this problem.have you tried disabling hardware graphics acceleration in excel?
 
Last edited:
M

MandM

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
873
Arthur said:
Sounds like a video driver glitch/bug. Nothing to do with Windows/Office.

Using the latest video driver? If not, try that. If you are, try an older one.
Click to expand...

Yes, using the latest. I will try an older one to check.

It's just strange that it only Excel.

I found a thread elsewhere mentioning the same problem (https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/...he-black-and-grey-boxes-that-cover-the-screen)
"This is happening to me as well. It seems this may have something to do with really high resolution displays. My external monitor is UHD ("4k"). Something I have noticed that I don't believe has been pointed out yet is that this behavior seems to manifest itself (for me anyway) when the Excel window is at least 60% of the screen (approx million pixels). If the Excel window is less than that, I don't see the boxes. Sure seems like some sort of buffer overrun to me."

I am also fine if I reduce the size of the Excel window.
 
M

MandM

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
873
In case anyone else has the same issue, this is what solved it for me:

I upgraded to Office 2016 and disabled hardware acceleration in Excel. This step did not work with Office 2013.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top