Excel Not Calculation/Referencing

[Peter3280]

I am using Excel 2003. I have a budget model consisting 27 work books. In one workbook (milk sales) I calculate the price variance of a purchased product that we also manufacture.

This price variance is sent to the p & l workbook (protein powder) using a simple “=” formula.

When I have just these two work books open the protein powder p & l updates automatically for a change in the cost/price of the purchased input in milk sales.

However when I have the entire model open the same automatic update does not occur unless I hit cntl+alt+f9 or edit links and change the source file to the same milk sales file (update values does not recalculate).

I have tried opening each workbook one at a time to ascertain which work book is causing the problem but this was not successful. That is the variance is calculated each time I open a new workbook in the model and change costs. I have also opened all files dependent to the milk sales and protein powder workbooks one at a time.

One further note I was experiencing the same problem with another workbook in this model which at the time was being opened by a workspace. I removed the workspace and the linking issue disappeared. I have removed all workspace files from the model hoping for a similar result. However this was not successful.

It has been suggested that I am approaching the limits of Excel. Can I test this? How can I be sure the model is working OK? Any suggestions???

Regards
Peter

[protonLeah]

You say that the update works when any two files are open but, not if all 27 are open. Have you tried opening two, then adding a third concurrently, checking the update, then a fourth,... until you get to a point where the update stops?

[Peter3280]

Yes I have tried this. When I select all 27 files to open together the model does not update. If I open one at a time and eventually have all 27 files open I no not have the same problem.