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PDMWorks / Solidworks / Network freeze!! 1

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woolly

woolly

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Apr 7, 2005
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Any ideas on this one.

We have a multi seat design office using Solidworks 2007, across a 10/100M bit network. We know we would be better off using a Gigabit network to improve network access etc, but costs etc mean we are stuck with what we've got at the moment.

The problem we are having is with workstations just locking up randomly for no reason, one person could be accessing the vault, another working on Solidworks and another accessing files across the network, and all of a sudden all 3 three stop, and it may take a minute or so for things to kick into gear again, the strange thing is they will all start working again at the same time. This can happen to 2 or 3 people at the same time.

We're not sure if it's a SW or network problem or both, has anyone else experienced anything like this.

Thanks

Woolly

SW 2007 SP4.0
 
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Jeff is right, it is a network issue. Our network was slow, we crashed and etc. We went to a Gigabit line. So must better now.
If you are not going to put in a Gigabit line, then use PDM/Works and work off the hard drives. Then the only slow times would be people checking in and out of the vault.
Do not work across a network line.


Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP4.0
PDM Works, Dell XPS Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 5 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400
 
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I think we are going to have to look seriously into upgrading the network, at the end of the day the table is Gigabit, its just the server that needs upgrading. The problem with data access across the network is that both PDM data & palette parts, symbols etc are stored on the server, so either way we need that network access.

Woolly
 
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From SolidWorks site:
SNL Server Requirements:

USB or parallel port required.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003® (recommended)
Recommended: DVD drive. Minimum: CD drive (10)

(10) Starting with SolidWorks 2007 SP2 for new license sales we will only ship DVDs containing both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of our products. No CDs will be shipped.
For new product orders, CDs can be requested during the remainder of the SolidWorks 2007 release. CDs sets can be ordered from your local reseller. Starting with SolidWorks 2008 the product will only be available on DVDs.
Click to expand...

Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP4.0
PDM Works, Dell XPS Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 5 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400
 
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We are still running 2000 server at the moment which I knew wasn't supported but seems to work okay generally, whether this freezing is linked to it i'm not sure. Solidworks seem to just stop supporting software on a whim and it can be a never ending upgrade program if your not careful and our IT department hold on to their cash!!

Thanks

Woolly

 
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Another thing probably more important than your network speed is the type of storage being used for your SW data. You can't all try to pull data from one server with only one spindle grinding away trying to load up everyone's requests. I don't know what the actual setup is but you should have at least 3 or 4 drives preferably in RAID 5 if you want to take the cheaper way out. Otherwise there are a lot of SAN and NET APP storage solutions which can make some insane differences. You may not think it is a lot but 100 Mb/s is still a lot of throughput. IMO

Just to throw this in there whether or not anyone is familiar with it we use DBWorks to manage our SW data.
 
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Solidworks just doesn't stop supporting it on a whim... its Microsoft Certified and if MS stop supporting it, then SW has to stop supporting it. Because the if there is a problem with the older version of windows and SW, and it would require a MS hotfix... MS will not support that update... therefore SW cannot Support the the same OS if MS doesn't support it.

You just can't assume SW doesn't have it's reasons for why this is the way it is.

Regards,



Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
faq731-376
 
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Scott,

This may be the case but these people seem to think you can upgrade your software / hardware every release of Solidworks and the pot of money is never ending. In the real world this isn't the case there are budgets that have to be adhered to and you can't just keep throwing money at it in this way.

Regardless of the support issue, do you have any ideas on the network freezing problem?

Thanks

Woolly
 
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Jeff,

They are high end workstations from CAD2. General spec as follows :-

Intel core 2 - 2.7Ghz processor
4Gb RAM, one with 8Gb. (DDR2)
Nvidia FX3500 or ATi V7100 Graphics card
Windows XP 64 bit
SATA 10,000 rpm drives

Thanks

Woolly
 
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There are several steps I can reccomend before trying to replace any equipment. First, you definitely want to rule our your individual workstations like Jeff suggested.

Also, you should check to make sure that the Duplex settings on your workstation network card match that on the switch that all your workstations are connecting to. You will have to contact your network admin to do that. I do not know the size of your network but you also want to make sure the clients are connecting through switches and not hubs to the network.

There are also performance monitors that you can deploy on your server. Microsoft has one that is free to download for your server. The performance monitor would be able to let you see if it is your server hardware that is creating the bottleneck. You should/could monitor such things as CPU, RAM, and Disk read/write Queue length being the three most important. This won't fix the problem and it takes some time to get set up correctly but it may let you determine where money if any should be spent.
 
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Years ago I had problems with the network where I worked that would cause my PC to lock up. I argued with IT about it being a bottleneck between the server and my workstation. Naturally, they told me I was wrong. I had my VAR come in and do a test. They opened up an assembly across the network, at my desk, and then the same assembly at the server. Turns out I was right. There was a hub or something (I can never remember) that was causing the bottleneck. Once that piece of hardware was replaced/upgraded, no more problems.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
SW '07 SP2.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2GB RAM, nVidia 2500M
 
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I agree, I think it's hardware.
As I mentioned above, also move data cables away from power cables. I have seen SW come to a crawl until its data lines were moved.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 4.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 04-21-07)
 
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I am still running SW on a 3 year old machine and its fine... But if think that SW makes you update your hardware each and every year your wrong. Your machine if running the right OS should last about 3 years. And if you don't keep up with the changing times and compete against your competitor... the time is going to pass you by and your going to lose.

Good luck with your problem, but its not hte software its your hardware.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
faq731-376
 
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All,

You'll be pleased to know after all the talk of hardware problems etc it seems all that needed to happen was a validation of the PDMWorks Vault. The problem got so bad this morning some people couldn't even get into SW, and when they did we were locking up totally. So after a bit of head scratching the only thing when hadn't yet down was a validation, once complete things seem a lot more stable and the freezing has gone away. This is something we will be doing more often now so the problem doesn't re-appear.

Thanks for all your help.

Woolly
 
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I set in the “PDMWorks Workgroup 2007 VaultAdmin” the On vault startup check Validate vault, check radio button Every startup.
I was restarting our service every morning manually. Now our IT department does this automatically every week day at 3 a.m.


Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP4.0
PDM Works, Dell XPS Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 5 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400
 
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