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Scroll wheel zooming issues on a fresh install (plus excess cpu usage)

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maxh3

Mechanical
Dec 10, 2010
77
I've been having computer issues and have had a warranty motherboard and hdd exchange, followed by a whole new computer (dell laptop.) Originally I had Solidworks installed and everything worked great. After the new motherboard/hard drive, I reinstalled and noticed that sometimes the scroll wheel zooming was hyper sensitive.

I use the scroll wheel to zoom extensively; that's how I move my view point around. Zoom out, then zoom back in elsewhere, with middle mouse button for dragging/rotating the part around.

At first things work fine, then maybe an hour down the road or maybe a day or two with the computer up and running, suddenly slight movements of the scroll wheel will result in excess zooming. The part will become a tiny spot then disappear, and it's difficult to get zoomed back in on it. So I'll save all of my files, close Solidworks, re-open it and it works fine again.

Now with the whole new computer (different model) this scroll/zoom issue is constant. I can't use solidworks like this. Also, with Solidworks open I'm noticing excess CPU usage, like 10-12% with one of the cores' threads pretty much pegged. Closing Solidworks doesn't fix this. I have to use the task manager to manually end the solidworks.exe process before the computer will relax and the fan slow down.

I haven't done anything different with this install than the other one that worked fine. Any ideas? I've tried changing the mouse settings to 1 line per scroll wheel click from 3, and no change.
 
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Have you tried using a different mouse? Or at least a different mouse software/driver?
 
What are the system specs? I suspect that it's more than just your mouse or its drivers.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog
 
maxh3 ... Was the same mouse used on the old and new machines?

Does the new laptop have a different OS?
 
Thanks for the responses. Yes, same OS and same mouse on both systems (logitech vx nano.) I was actually able to fix the scroll/zoom issue by installing an older version of the driver/setpoint software. Good thing I save all of my old installers!

The excessive CPU issue persists, though. ~15% usage even when idling with no files open, and after closing Solidworks, SLDWORKS.exe process must be shut down manually through windows task manager otherwise it'll keep running and laptop fan going full blast.

Old system specs:
CPU: i7-820QM (4 cores, 8 threads, 1.73GHz (3.06GHz max turbo), 8MB cache)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6470M (1GB video memory)
RAM: 8GB, 1333MHz
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

New system specs:
CPU: i7-2820QM (4 cores, 8 threads, 2.3GHz (3.4GHz max turbo), 8MB cache)
GPU: NVIDIA Geforce GT 540M (1GB video memory)
RAM: 8GB, 1333 MHz
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

On the old system I was able to do a software modification to the GPU driver; basically I changed the stated name of the graphics card to FirePro V7750 (on Solidworks' supported list) to trick Solidworks into enabling all functions, such as RealView, even though it was technically an unsupported card. Before performing the mod, though, everything still worked fine, just with RealView disabled.

Do you think the excess CPU issue could be related to the unsupported graphics card?
 
While the graphics card may cause your system to work harder, I don't believe it would contribute to SolidWorks not completely shutting down normally. What version of SolidWorks are you running?

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog
 
Do you have any add-ins enabled?

Can you change the graphics card back to factory default settings?

Can you test with an approved graphics card?
 
Solidworks 2011 SP2.0. No add-ins enabled. This graphics card is at the default settings. It was the previous laptop for which I'd modified the driver, and that laptop worked great (both pre and post driver mod.) I can't think of any way to test with an approved GPU. I'm pretty sure it's soldered on to the motherboard in this laptop, and I don't even have an express card slot to try adding an external one. I think I'm going to try a fresh, clean install of windows followed by the solidworks install before anything else and if that doesn't work I'll have to revert to the older laptop.
 
Do you have the SW Indexing function enabled?

Are you using the Windows Aero theme?

What A/V are you using? Was it disabled during SW installation?
 
No antivirus during install. I just switch to a basic theme. What is this SW indexing function and where do I access it?
 
I right clicked on my computer > manage and in computer management I have nothing about indexing.
 
Tools > Options > System Options > Search

While there, make sure Dissection is disabled ... unless you use it of course.
 
Not sure about Win7, but in XP Indexing is under My Computer > Manage > Services and Applications > Services
 
Hi Maxh,

I just wanted to know how did you do the graphics card modifictions?

I just bought a notebook wi amd radeon 6470m 512MB dedicated memory and was wondering if i can make that modification to trick solidworks and activate all functions? Thanks in advance to all.
 
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