Frequent Inventor Crashes Common?

[jkgdesign]

We have been using Inventor now for about 9 months and have all of the latest upgrades and service releases. It is not uncommon to have at least 4-6 Inventor crashes per user each day. It is frustrating to our new users to have all of their work lost on a simple save, or other minor command. Do any of you have similar experiences, or are we alone here? Is there a solution?

Dell Precision 650 & 450
Wildcat 2 5110 & 4 7110
dual xeon 1.7 & 3.06
Windows 2000 and XP

 

[Panzer1970]

First question: How much memory do the engineering workstations have? Would suggest at least 1.0 Gb (Autodesk suggests 1.5 Gb)

Second question: What are your workstation virtual memory settings? Again set this higher 1.0 Gb at least.

Third question: What is your network connection speed? You are opening/saving larger than normal files or accessing mutliple files a slow network could gum things up and cause crashes (or at least make one wait for things to happen)

Forth question: Does Inventor actually make use of the duel processors? Most commands are linear in nature and do not use the second processor (for most 3D modelers).

Other than that I would normally suggest to set your autosave function to autosave every 5 to 10 minutes like in AutoCAD, but I haven't found an autosave feature within the document or application settings. Once again this is Autodesk's attempt to provide a superior product (NOT).

 

[jkgdesign]

Panzer
Here are some answers to your questions:
1. 4 Gb Ram on the older 450 stations, 2Gb on 650 stations
2.Virtual Memory = RAM
3. I believe network connection is 100mb, I can't varify the integrity of the connection, and our network admins don't seem to eager to help out much.
4. Inventor only uses the dual processor in processing drawing views. The second processor is helpful when using multiple application windows, Inventor, Rhino, AutoCAD, Outlook, etc. Processing doesn't tie up the whole system, so they can keep us working.
5. If autosave existed in Inventor I think our lives would be a little easier, but with our luck it probably would crash there also.
6. Are you a SW fan or just anti-Autodesk?

 

[Panzer1970]

jkgdesign

with the resources that you have available you're systems should not be crashing how big are the assemblies you are working (how many parts and files size)? If your company is continously having crashes, then maybe you should consider using another program, I would suggest Solidworks. To answer your question I haven't always been anti Autodesk (AutoCad) I started disliking it shortly after release 9...

 

[SeanDotson]

Try going through this Inventor Stability Document. Also with 4GB of RAM you might benifit from looking into the /3GB switch that is available on Win2K and WinXP

http://tinyurl.com/lhjr

I don't think just giving up and switch to Solidworks as Panzer suggests will sit too well..

Sean Dotson, PE
Inventor Tutorials & More

http://www.sdotson.com

 

[Panzer1970]

Quote
I don't think just giving up and switch to Solidworks as Panzer suggests will sit too well..
End Quote

Of heard of other companies making the switch from Inventor to Solidworks and not looking back...

 

[SeanDotson]

And I've heard the opposite too Panzer.

Some one has a problem and you suggest abandoning the whole software package and infranstructure?

Sean Dotson, PE
Inventor Tutorials & More

http://www.sdotson.com

 

[jkgdesign]

Inventor has a lot of cool features and functionality, all I'm looking for is some stability. Nobody has really answered the real question here; Are other users experiencing crashes as frequently as we are?

JKG

 

[SeanDotson]

Did you go through the stability document?

http://tinyurl.com/lhjr

I have been using Inventor 7 since it came out. I have maybe 1 crash per day and only then when really thrashing it.

Sean Dotson, PE
Inventor Tutorials & More

http://www.sdotson.com

 

[Panzer1970]

I had about 2 per day with a small assembly (roughly 14 parts)

 

[SoledWorker]

Don't jump ship to Solidworks if you want fewer crashes. I'm using SXW 2003 SP3, approved video card (Nvidia Quatro 4) and gobs of ram. In ~4 hours of use today, I've crashed 5 times.

Also, I think the drafting part of Inventor is much better than SWX...

 

[skills]

Has anyone here ever used A3DS Paralogix 2.1 ? I have been using it some and I like it better than Inventor v4 or Solid Works 2000. I haven't had crashes with any of these so I don't know about those.

 

[drvitorino]

jkgdesign,
Have you tried to change your settings for hardware acceleration? I have experienced this also, the problem is probably your video card compatibility.
Disabling some video capabilities will slow down your system performance, but you will have the chance to know if the video card is really your problem.
If you confirm this, you will be able to change your hardware

Project Engineer

 

[Julian1k]

drvitorino is probably right, we recently took delivery of new high spec pcs with additional ati graphics cards, this led to multiple crashes per day where the screen would just wipe across with solid blue. whipped out the ati cards and went over to the onboard intel jobbies and problem solved!
good luck.