Word Slow Screen Redraw (Office XP)

[asbms]

I am running Office XP on Win2K (though I had the same problem with Office 2K from which I've just upgraded)

Word (and it's only Word, no other app, MS or otherwise) redraws the screen slowly from top to bottom whenever I switch into it or move around a doc using PgUp / Dn etc. This takes around 1.5 secs everytime. This may not sound a long time but it is when you're used to screens refreshing instantaneously and I end up pasting stuff into the wrong part of a doc, i.e. where the cursor is shown on the screen is not where it actually is as the screen refresh is several seconds behind.

The PC has 256 Ram and ATi RAGE XL AGP 2X graphics card.

I've experimented with every Word setting I can think of, to no avail. Perhaps this is not a Word/MS issue but a problem with the graphics card (and I know nothing about those).

I also thought it might have been the monitor which was a few years old, so I bought a new one (IIyama AS4611UT). No change.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Alex

[jscher2000]

Does this only occur in particular documents or modes? Is it worse in documents with tables, graphics, and drawing layer objects? Is it worse in Print Layout than in Normal view? Is it worse if the document was opened from a server or removable drive than from the hard drive?

Even with all that information, with 256MB RAM, it's hard to see why performance should be so bad, but maybe some hints would help get the ideas flowing.

[asbms]

It occurs with all documents in all views though there's no problem clicking or Alt-Tab into Word when there is no document open or only a blank document open. There is no discernible difference with various tables, graphs etc. However, nearly all the docs I'm working with are nothing more than simple text - they're drafts of various articles and I do an awful lot of cutting and pasting between them which is why the fact that the screen does not redraw instantaneously is particularly irritating.

I'm working on a stand-alone PC (there is a LAN card but this is used for the cable modem internet connection).

Thanks

[Phil Rabichow]

Try starting Word from the command line (Start/Run) & type
winword.exe /a
& then press enter. This will start Word without any add-ins & w/o normal.dot. See if the problem still occurs. It may be that a corrupt normal.dot or some add-in could be causing problems. If it goes away, then try renaming normal.dot to see if that's the problem. Lastly, you can remove everything in the Word & Office startup folders & see if that helps. (only if starting Word with the /a switch has helped)
Cheers,

[asbms]

This gave an interesting result. It worked fine starting with the /a switch as Word started with the default 100% magnification. Through a bit of trial and error I've found that the problem only occurs with magnification above 130% (I usually have it around 160%). I have mostly the same kit and set-up on my work PC and don't have this problem even with the larger magnification so I don't think that it can be than Word runs slower at a larger magnification.

Much though I hate to let MS off the hook, I'm wondering whether it's more likely to be a hardware/graphics card problem or limitation.

[Phil Rabichow]

I'm glad you found a clue. I haven't used Word 2002, so I don't know what might cause a problem in higher magnifications. Why don't you try a high magnification in another program, like Excel. I'd also look into graphics card/driver issues.

[asbms]

I had the same problem in Word 2000 on this PC and I have tested other MS and non-MS Apps and it is only Word that has this problem (and now I've found at 130%+ magnification). If it is a graphics card/driver issue I'm at a loss as to how to sort it out as I know nothing about hardware. I have no problem with simply buying a new graphics card if I knew that would solve the problem rather than spending days trying to sort it out (it'd certainly be cheaper considering the work time I'm losing!). Any idea how I can test whether it is the graphics card which is at fault?

[Phil Rabichow]

I'm sorry; I don't. Perhaps you could ask over in the hardware forum about graphics cards & drivers & see if someone thinks that could be the problem. I don't know what else to suggest. I'm certainly NOT sure that that is the problem, but maybe someone over there has a better idea.

[asbms]

Thanks

I'll trying posting in the hardware forum.

[Gary Frieder]

One longshot to try: try changing the monitor's colors setting (Control Panel > Display> Settings tab> Colors).