Andy Clapham on 05 Oct 2023 14:00:28
Power BI runs a local version of SQL Server Analysis Services (msmdrv.exe)
This application is optimised for servers, not desktops.
When it is busy number-crunching behind the scenes, it starves all resources from other programs running on the desktop machine, and makes the entire machine unresponsive and very unpleasant to use.
Consider tuning the desktop version msmdrv for desktop environments, leaving some resources for other apps that may be running.
E.g. I have had a lot of improvement simply by setting processor affinity to only use 12/16 of my cores.