Low memory alert: Unable to load power query data in power pivot.

[Kumar Shanmugam]

Using get data and transform I loaded 3 months CSV data and comibined the same through power query.



There are 20.10 lakh rows of data.
Data contains 39 columns.



I am facing a problem if i did data massaging after the above step.

For eg, I sorted the data by two columns and then tried to load the data into power pivot. After a certain point of applying query changes, I am getting low memory error.

I am using the latest version of Power BI. So no issue with the version of Power BI desktop.

I am using company provided laptop which has 64 bit intel core i3 4 GB Ram processor.

Is this due to server processor capacity issue? If Yes, is there any alternative solution like increasing the data load settings in power bi desktop.

Also unchecked the overall setting to optimise data modelling but this is also not working.

 

[Kumar Shanmugam]

Hi Forget to mention I am using Power BI desktop not excel 2016

 

[Chihiro]

Likely issue is your RAM. You'll want minimum of 8GB, preferably 16GB for standard PowerBI use.

If you need to perform analysis on "Big Data" and need to perform statistical analysis, 32Gb or more is recommended.

Processor has little to do with that error message (though it may take longer to crunch numbers), but CPU architecture will dictate how much memory can be utilized etc.

You'll need to check how much memory your CPU and motherboard, supports and go from there.

 

[GraH - Guido]

Are you using the Power BI 64 bit as well? It will handle more data with less RAM.
But, what Chihiro just said... 4GB of RAM is not a lot. How much of it is already used when you just fire up windows? Mine is already at 3.5 when just using Outlook f.e.

 

[Kumar Shanmugam]

Yes, I am using power BI 64 bit. Sorry I cannot increase the RAM memory of my laptop as it is company provided. 4 GB is the limit. Is there any alternative solution?

I have tried to capture the memory of my laptop at different instances.

At the time of sorting:



At the time when my laptop runs out of memory.



Also, I wonder how power BI desktop fails over Excel 2016.

Excel 2016 can handle the same 20 lakhs of data with the below data massaging techniques like sorting and adding additional columns.

 

[Chihiro]

Sorry, can't really help you here. As memory optimization isn't my strong suite and I tend to do most of heavy lifting on SQL Server side before I load data to model (or use python/R).

 

[Kumar Shanmugam]

Thanks now i understood the limitation of power BI desktop