Dell Workstation having trouble with large assemblies

[cjabraham]

Over at CSU Fullerton we have a Dell T5500 workstation that the FSAE team is using to design a formula car for competition. We are having issues with manipulating the top assembly of our car. The problem is that when we try to move parts as constrained by their mates, the system locks up and it takes several minutes to calculate a simple movement of an a-arm, for example. Suppressing everything except the parts we are moving solves the problem at the moment, but this machine SHOULD be capable of much more than we are getting out of it. The top assembly is divided into an organized system of sub-assemblies that are resolved as flexible, and we have tried settings such as large assembly mode and resolve to lightweight without much luck.

We have tried bringing down the number of cores from 24 to 12, which helped a great amount. This is also the only "large assembly" we have opened on this computer so there is nothing to compare it against to determine if it is the computer or the model itself.

we are running Solidworks 2011/12 educational version.

Computer Specs:
Dell Precision T5500
Intel Xeon CPU E6545 @ 2.40GHz 6 cores, 6 logical
54GB physical RAM
GeForce Quadro 5000 2.5GB with latest driver

Assembly Specs:
370 parts
65 sub-assemblies
max depth 4
25 top level components
93 top level mates

 

[Prototrax]

Believe it or not.....when I started in a new design position a few years ago, I had a Dell computer that would hang on simple sketches. After a night of searching forums, the culprit turned out to be Microsoft Intellipoint mouse drivers. I have used Logitech mice ever since then. Just my .02 $

 

[cjabraham]

The only anti-virus software we have is the windows security essentials, but that was a very good suggestion.

At the time of the first post, the driver from the solidworks website was installed. Now the latest driver from NVIDIA is installed. (V 276.28)

We are using a Logitech mouse, but we apparently don't have any drivers installed for it. Going to try that out right now.



SW 2012 SP1
CSWA

 

[EEnd]

You will get the greatest improvement in performance by restructuring your subassemblies so that most of the mates are in subassemblies that are marked as rigid. Having all of the subassemblies flexible forces SW to solve all of the mates simultaneously. If you break the subassemblies down further into rigid elements, only the mates relevant to your degrees of freedom will need to be saved.

The command Insert -> Component -> Assembly from Selected Components
may be helpful in this undertaking.

Eric

 

[kellnerp]

You really want to be using the Solidworks certified graphics drivers.

How many tasks does performance monitor say are running when you have SolidWorks shut down?



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[cjabraham]

As i said in an earlier post, I was able to work with this model just fine with a laptop. At this point, my concerns lie within the computer settings rather than the model.

Along the same lines, however, the problem with making any part of this assembly rigid, is that parts on a car inherently move. Parts that don't need to move are already rigid. Is there a significant difference between mating everything in a top assembly, then making a sub assembly from selected components, as opposed to creating subassemblies first and dropping then into a top assembly?

Also, the school called a SW rep again, we are going to have a tech come look at the computer. Thank you guys for all of the help and suggestions so far.

SW 2012 SP1
CSWA

 

[EEnd]

I am unsure from the statement "Parts that don't need to move are already rigid." if you have already structured your assembly in the manner that I was suggesting.

If you have a group of parts (say, the tire, wheel and associated fasteners) that move together as a rigid body, then placing those elements together in a rigid subassembly allows SW to solve their mates separately and treat the result as a rigid body during the solution of the mates in higher level assemblies. This can result in a significant improvement in performance and stability.

Creating subassemblies from selected components will only be a benefit if you do not currently have groups of components which move together isolated into their own rigid subassemblies, and you want to create those subassemblies from your existing model. I generally create the subassemblies first and insert them into higher level assemblies. I use create from selected components to preserve existing mates when I am restructuring an assembly.

Eric