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Floworks locking computer

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element94

Mechanical
Dec 2, 2004
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When I start a new Floworks calculation my computer locks up. I go to the task manager and the system idle process is using 99-100% of the cpu. It always does it when Floworks stores the initial flow. Any ideas? Thanks
 
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An engineer here uses dual processors to make his Floworks run properly.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site
FAQ371-376
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-1091
FAQ559-716
"DON'T BE IRREPLACEABLE. IF YOU CAN'T BE REPLACED, YOU CAN'T BE PROMOTED"
 
You said System idle, You didn't specify the CPu was being used by the app. the System idle is almostt always using the CPU. You should list what the app was doing with the CPU.

If it's at 0% then yes it probably locked up - Try running a repair on your Flowworks.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
the first iteration in FloWorks usually takes the longest time. also, FloWorks is very RAM intensive. be careful about the no.of cells that are generated. in general, for a 1GB RAM machine the no.of cells should be below 250,000. try running the analysis without any refinements first.
 
element94,

Where having same problem, we have a monster computer and floworks still crashes, so I think we're have goengineering come to company today or tommorrow, and I'll give you guys all the information after I get back from phoenix over the weekend.

Printed Circuit Board Designer
Salt Lake City, Utah
Stangs rule!
 
I'm looking forward to hearing what goengineering has to say. I bought a new computer, it's a 3.6 Xeon with 2.0 GB of RAM to run this. My VAR led me to someone who couldn't answer my questions regarding internal flow. Then he led me to someone who has yet to respond to my voicemails. What SW specs do you want? I'm on 05'. I've been able to run Floworks if I simplfy my model, but it doesn't represent my problem real well.
 
element94,

We're still having problems too our VAR has no clue on what to do. We have a 64 bit processor at 3.4 gig, and have 2 gigs of memory, but not as fast as your computer.


Printed Circuit Board Designer
Salt Lake City, Utah
Stangs rule!
 
element94,

Our VAR was here this mourning and something funny happen today we have two machines on with XP and one 2000 and the XP fail everytime. So put 2000 on your computer and see if that helps ?

Printed Circuit Board Designer
Salt Lake City, Utah
Stangs rule!
 
element94,

If you have a complicated design you might want to get a bigger heatsink and fan for your processor, because our processor reached one hundered and eighty degrees, so I don't want you to lose your seven hundred dollar processor.

Printed Circuit Board Designer
Salt Lake City, Utah
Stangs rule!
 
Well I've been beating on this problem for days and believe that I finally have an answer. There is a bug here. It turns out that the software doesn't like like one feature on one of the parts in my assembly. It was the mirror of a feature that the software will accept. I had to recreate the feature a completely different way for the software to accept it.

To find the offending part you must suppress parts in the assembly and try re-running the study. It is sometimes helpful to suppress multiple parts at a time to eliminate them faster. Be sure to save before you run the study. Look at your more complicated parts first.

When the software stops running in the storing of initial flow (0% CPU in Task Manager) you must hit the stop button twice. The first time it'll ask you if you want to save, say no. The second time it'll ask you if you want to be patient, say no or you'll be waiting forever. Click the go-away box to make that window go away. Solidworks will probably be locked up at this time and you must kill it with the task manager and start over. That is why it is important to save your work before you start the study.

Hope this helps,
Russ
The Design Factory, Inc.

P.S. I had the problem with both XP & 2000.
 
Oops, I forgot to add:

Once you’ve figured out which part it is, you must find out which feature it is. Do this by creating a separate study for just that part and roll back the model and/or suppress features until you find the offending feature(s). It'll probably be something silly and leave you scratching your head.

Russ
The Design Factory, Inc.
 
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