how to use ram more efficiently???

Not realy getting your point but if U want to use more ram start by opening more programs and for buying more ram no need for that if you only use exel

 

do you have a 64 bits system ? it's mandatory to use the full 8 gb ram

 

If you're a heavy Excel user and use huge worksheets with more than 200MB, a lot of formulas and so, than more RAM would have a positive effect!

One of my customers use worksheet's wit 600-800MB and he was need to upgrade his laptop to the max (16GB) of RAM. The time such of his processes needed, was down after the upgrade from 4h to 30min.

Other use of much memory, would only be by using Video Editing, Rendering and other huge graphical processes, and some Game (Simulators etc.) for sure!!

 

Unless you are using truly huge spreadsheets, there is absolutely no good reason to use 64 bit Office. It is actually hurting performance.

 

What do you care how much your excel take ram ? the main thing it's work.

 

Excel is the only 'every day' Apps from MS which really is memory 'hungry'! It's overall even not really the very huge Spreadsheets, it's the processes and transactions which needs the memory a,d as more you have as faster Excel is working, and with low amount of memory, such processes could need a lot of hours to complete! With low memory, even such processes will either never finish, or end up in error's! It got better with the newer version, 2013 and 2016 are a lot better than 2010!

Just it really seems to be that Microsoft is change with newer versions of Excel to a higher need of memory, even the overall Memory Manager of Windows works much better now! Luckily for the user, the memory are cheap this days!

 

Mandatory for what?

A 32bit program can use 2 lor 4 Gigs of ram, depending if the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE is set.

Unless you are doing some fancy large simulation hardly Excel can mac out those values, not to mention the multiprocess programs like Chromium and derivatives where that limit affects the single process.

In short 64bit programs are worth just for a niche of programs (multimedia encoders, file compressors, photo editing, large math emulation and little more)

 

A 64bit version of Windows is mandatory if OP wants to have access to all 8GB of system RAM, a 32bit Windows will only give around 3.5GB (I know there is a patch for certain ones)

Don't think OP understands much about RAM usage though, adding more RAM will not make the machine use more RAM

Not sure what OP thinks he needs the machine using more RAM for, the more you have, the more it CAN use, IF it needs to

I'd be a bit worried if my machine used 8GB RAM on idle

 

Ok, I understand you do not exactly know the cause of the slowdown and you assume based on some info you heard somewhere it must be your 'RAM'.

RAM stands or Random Access Memory. It is used to hold currently loaded applications and their tasks.

The program Excel is not very a memory hungry program, unless you opened a huge document (which we do not know you did or not).
A memory hungry process would be to open a Youtube video at 2K, a high end game or do video editing.

Also if you opened Office for the first time on boot or shortly after starting up your system, it will always need time to some load libaries before giving control to Excel.
So basically, especially with your 8GB, you are not gonna run out of memory fast.
Actually even if you open a huge file, your memory should still be able to hold it easily, the file needs to be copied to memory and your CPU would need to process everything in it which takes alot of time.

The things that do affect how fast your system operates are a faster CPU and if you have a SSD.
A CPU will affect how fast your computer thinks and calculates.
A SSD will affect how fast your computer can write and read to/from disk. Basically a SSD is a new tech HDD which is USB flash drive like instead of moving components.

If your operating system is very busy at the moment, it may also cause delay's on other programs, for example Windows Update, a huge game or if you got tons of crap running.

 

Seems to be a nice PC.
When does your Excel delay by 22 seconds?
Is this on every startup, no matter if previously already startup on current boot allowing it to load libaries to memory?

Also are you sure that document of 11MB is not corrupt or something else has been saved to it that may cause it to increase loading time?

 

That's true only as a short explanation. I think even NT 4 server was able to address more than 4GB, the same is true for linux, if the kernel if properly compiled.

So the windows desktop limit is more an artificial barrier than a real architectural one.

That said, even on a plain unpatched desktop windows, the use of the exceeding ram on x86 as a ramdisk, sometimes, can be more productive than a large (and often unused) ram on x64.

people often forgets, that Windows x64 means also files 1.6x bigger on average. Which, in turn, means slower disk access, and often slower ram access as well.

The theory is that x64 programs and OSes are faster, while the real world often prove the opposite is true, at least on most common tasks.

 

Buy an SSD not waste your money on a pointless ram upgrade.

 

Peoples upgrade more ram for games or graphics softwares.