Should I give up on SolidWorks?

[EdDanzer]

I started using SolidWorks in January, 1996, got the first copy of Cosmos Works shipped, sent hundreds of bug notifications, helped sell their product, visited their office in person to try to fix problems, and sent in lots of enhancement request.
The problem with legacy files has become even worse, plus I now need to upgrade Cosmos Works and Cosmos Motion for a cost of over $3500.00.
I will only need the FEA and kinematics for a few projects this year, so the cost per hour of use will be more than subcontracting out the design.
So what did I gain with 2003, more crashing when working with older version assemblies, repairing mates, repairing or recreating drawing pages, resaving each file opened, and in some cases starting over. It seems I spend more time fixing problems than creating new designs.
What do you think I should do?

 

[MadMango]

If the tool ain't workin' for the job you have at hand, it's time to get a new tool. If you are on your own, you need stable software, no doubt about that. I guess you have to gage if dropping your current format for another system will return gains farther down the road.

With that said, my company hardly ever encounters half the problems that I read about on here and at comp.cad.solidworks. Maybe we do things differently, maybe our designs aren't as complicated as others. Overall, we feel justified in keeping our subscription up to date. Ray Reynolds
Senior Designer
Read: faq731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."

 

[macPT]

In my opinion we should not run after each upgrade. And never install the last upgrade or SP unless we know the software is stable and with no bad surprises.

Being constantly up-to-date it's a high price we must pay because there are allways methods we need to change, files we need to convert, configurations we need to test, macros to adjust. And time to do this it's time that we can hardly recover using the new features.

That's why I skip 2001+ and used, with no complaints, SW2001.

Now, with SW2003, I thought it was the time to upgrade, since there are major improvements. I've waited for SP1. I've installed SW2033SP1 and, after one week of conversions and testing (and no design), here I am again, calmly running SW2001.

I've found that, apparently, Oxigen VX1 and VIA chipset are not 1005 compatible and SW2003 doesn't work properly (2001 work fine!). The only help from SW was a link to a site from 3Dlabs reporting this problem. I've installed the latest recommended drivers from 3Dlabs and VIA with no success. Now I only work with SW2003 only for testing porpuses.

I will solve the problem either by correcting it with some help of 3Dlabs or VIA (we are in contact to try to solve it) or by buyng a new computer. But I can't buy a new computer every time that there is a new SW. Nor I can spend one week testing problems in the softawre and/or hardware.

The management don't ask me which version of solidworks I have installed. They ask me about new product sellings and about cost reductions in current production in relation to the R&D budget.

That's why I will install SW2003, and, when everything is going smoothly, stick to it for some years.

Regards

 

[TheTick]

It was bound to happen. I would call SW 2003 a "dud release". Improvements are superficial, and performance is compromised in the process. Happens to nearly every CAD program at some time or another.

Kind of reminds me of a bit of folk wisdom I once heard: If you change the water pump in an old car, the hoses will be bursting soon after. Could be that 2003 demands more of one's resources than was expected.

I am also suspicious about the whole COSMOSWorks things. I am actually not a fan of extreme interoperability. It seems to cause more problems than it solves. Have you tried running SolidWorks without COSMOS and COSMOSWorks? Gravity is a harsh mistress.

 

[pyarnall]

I am a one man office and I sympathize with your problems, Ed. I went to SW in Ver 2001 from basic 2D (3D wire frame) and it was a good investment. My clients loved being able to see the models and I gained much better insight into my own designs. My machine is Athlon based, lots of memory, and has the Quadro 750 card that SW offered last year for a good price. Also run a Space Mouse. 2001 and + ran fine. Win2k never crashed and the machine was almost never rebooted. I went to 2003 and it got ugly. I was told to get Win2K SP3. Did that and my backup machine (which had no problems with either version)and then neither version would even load! Main machine would load but had no effect on crashing. Was advised to reformat and reload everything... did that, (at great expense of time and some $ for assistance). Now back up machine runs and main machine is maybe a bit better, but still crashes (the entire system) without warning. Might be related to the Space Mouse, I am told, but I can't give it up. I install the latest drivers, SP, whatever, for all my hardware as soon as they are out hoping that will be the "silver bullet". I have auto backup set for every two changes. I can't go back so I keep moving forward and hope that it will get better.

I can certainly appreciate that there is a lot going on in the computer.... I am amazed sometimes that it works at all! However, the stability issue is a scary one for me. I wish SW would certify hardware combinations that were known to be stable, or fix the software or both. I can't afford to buy a new computer with each upgrade either but I would certainly look at recommended hardware when it was time to upgrade equipment. My maintenance contract has bought me very little added productivity and I wil never recoup the lost time and aggarvation due to the instability.

It's a bit like the stock market... I can't get out and it's bound to get better (right!?).

 

[zxys]

Hey, I've had files failing from SW2003 sp0 and sp1 and of course, SW2001plus sp5 and sp6.

Even though SW2001plus sp6 is not perfect, it's at very easy dealing with SW2003.

SW2003 is very painful to work with because, again, like most new versions, it has some niceties but it's not production ready.

..

 

[mtkcomtal]

I recently returned to SW after a year on UG. I originally selected SW2000 over everything else for a start up company I joined. It was the first CAD package I enjoyed working with and was actually able to do more designing than computer operating. Of course the company went out of buisness and ended up back on UG.

Then - happy day - I was transfered to a project using SW 2003. I wish I was back in UG. I don't know what they did to SolidWorks, but for me (in addition to the slowness and almost daily crashes) it has lost it's natural feel. I'm back operating software instead of designing again.

I know it's an old thread, but I had to vent this morning - hadn't saved in a while when SW took a break.

 

[SBaugh]

I have found that an Alternative reinstall faq559-507 has fixed slow downs in the sketcher, the spinning of models, along with other misc slow downs. I only use this method when all other options have been exhausted, like drivers, setup options, etc...

Regards,


Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[StarrRider]

Scott

I’m sorry and I sympathize, but this is not a new story. It happens with every release of SW to quite a few people. Part of the problem though is that there doesn’t seem to be any consistency to it.
We were using SW2000. I think that was the most stable version of the program ever. We only did 2 or 3 SP upgrades the entire time. SW2001 came out and we were slow upgrading to it because we were in the middle of a project and didn’t want to take the chance. I had been monitoring Comp.Cad.SolidWorks for a month and there were very few complaints. So we upgraded and installed the SP (5 or 6 I believe).
When SW2001+ was released, one of our people insisted on trying it immediately. He didn’t try it on his home system like I would have, he did it on our net and suddenly – everyone had to upgrade to SW2001+ because we couldn’t open any file that he had touched. In 1 week, he opened and saved several major assemblies and 90% of the files had been changed.
Shortly after that, we purchase 2 brand new identical systems. 1 ran SW and never crashed. The other crashed every 10 or 20 times a day. That was my system. I heard every possible reason for it from operator error to incompatible software that I HAD to have installed. After 2 months I was getting very angry about it. We pulled the hard disks and switched systems. Suddenly my system was stable and the other one crashed all the time. As soon as the CMOS settings were identical, both systems were stable.
I am still running SW2001+ SP4 and have no intention of changing anything until – possibly – SW2003 SP5 or 6 is out. Even then, I will monitor Comp.Cad.SolidWorks for a month before I do.
That may be a cowardly way of acting, if so, then I am a coward. There doesn’t seem to be much of a reward for all of the hassle.

Lee

It really IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you!

 

[SBaugh]

Lee

That's your choice to do that, and that's fine. I on the other hand cannot do that. I have to upgrade and keep up with the changes. I do also have a seat of SW01+ SP6 on the same machines that runs SW03 SP1.0-3.0 (3 Machines). I don't have much trouble running SW (Never have) Sometimes I get crashes and sometimes I don’t. My most recent problem was the way I was trying to create the geometry. Once I changed the way I was going about it, the file stopped crashing. It can be a number of different things or combinations of things that causes a crash. Its hard to pin point one exact problem.

What I listed above is something I have found that has helped people that have called me for help. Most of their problems were either slow downs or crashes. This method has helped both. Not all the time, but on and average of people I have used this on, I have found about 85% of the time it fixes or helps speed up their display. Those are pretty good odds without having to do a full uninstall and reinstall. Which takes a lot of time to do sometimes.

Best Regards,


Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[StarrRider]

Scott

< - - - I like your dancing elephant


I know. I was merely pointing out what I consider to be an obvious fact. We have a choice to make. We can either – stay current and up to date with SW and the SP’s and take the lumps – OR - upgrade when it is convenient and more likely to be safe.
Like you, I’ve been around the block a few times and normally - I simply don’t have that many problems. If I had a choice, I would stay current, but normally there are schedules that have to be kept and things that have to be accomplished. They take priority over personal preferences. Somehow, I just can’t see myself going to the Engineering VP and stated that my project is 2 months late because I was stupid enough to trust my software’s reliability. Not unless I wanted to resign in a strange way.

Then again – I wasn’t the one moaning and groaning or wondering if it is worth it all. - There is no insult intended. - I have read a lot of your replies on this forum and I have a great deal of respect for you. I also respect your commitment to this forum and appreciate the help that you give freely. These are important things – they show the world what we are made of.

Lee

According to an unfinished survey - 9 out of 10 people . . . . .

 

[EdDanzer]

Scott how many file do you handle per day?
SolidWorks doesn’t crash if you are not pushing it. The file I worked on this afternoon had about 400 parts, it was built from subassemblies. Some of the parts were created in various versions back to 1996, several were done in 2001+. The dam thing crashed 6 times in 2 hours. The Dell is less than 1 year old running Windows 2000, I’ve reinstalled SolidWorks 2 times, the second time included removing all SolidWorks related stuff, defragging the hard drive and reinstalling. This took the best part of a day, and made no difference. One project I created all the parts in 2003, still crashes when pushed hard. With little time available to do projects, redoing what has already been done cost money. It looks like my design cost will double because of the poor job SolidWorks has done with this new release.
If I have a project that has time and cost limits I can create 10 new parts per hour, and reuse 15+ per hour when designing something, so in a 10 hour day I will handle 120+ files and will see 2 to 3 crashed in the process. If I’m reworking a product It’s not uncommon to have 500+ files opened in an assembly and see crashing every time I start getting ahead of the machine by more than 3 mouse clicks.
My cost of using 2003+ are higher than 97, and it was terrible.

 

[StarrRider]

EdDanzer

This question might not be worth the air it takes to ask it, but the thought occurred and so I am going to ask it. When SW2001+ came out, it included a program called SldConverter.exe that was used to update all of the pre-2001+ files in a directory. All that the program did was have SW open each file in a directory and save it.

The question is – How extensively did you guys use it? I know that I only ran it on a few directories and then gave it up as a PITA. We were having a lot of crashes and it didn’t seem to help.

In my case, it was the CMOS settings that were causing 90% of my problems and they went away. Before they did though, I created a macro that opened a file; forced SW to do several rebuilds, saved it and then closed. I changed it so that it would access specific files and write a report. Different versions of that macro started running on 5 different computers at 6 PM on a Friday night. Monday morning showed that 3 of them had completed their runs – 2 did CTDs. The next weekend the last of the files were done.

I cannot state that it helped – there were simply too many other things going on at the time - but I have always wondered about it. I know that SW saves every file – faster than you can turn around. Because of that – I wondered why they created the program in the first place. There shouldn’t have been any need for it. The only conclusion that I could draw was that there might be a subtle difference in the code – between a direct save and an indirect save.

So ask yourself this question. Do you crash as often with new files or with old ones?

Lee

The best leaders inspire by example. When that is not an option, brute force and intimidation works pretty well, too.

 

[SBaugh]

Ed,

It depends sometimes...Sometiems I get extremly large assemlbies and sometimes I don't. I have had an assembly open that consisted of 300-400 parts along with the drawing and a couple of other models were not related to that model and I didn't crash. My computer is not that great. I have to get more RAM for it soon. I'm only running 512, along with an Else Gloria Card, 700 CPU. I don't know what HDD. Although I have had smaller assemblies and parts open, that would crash. Had one yesterday on an assembly I'm working on.

Being in the job I'm in now I see a lot different stuff and some of it will push my comupter and some will not. But I have to change my settings all the time to make my computer like the customers, and that has a bearing on the way my computer acts with SW vs. yours and for the most part it's pretty stable.

With your problem it maybe a hardware issue. Even if the computer is less than 1 year old. Have you ever bought a part for you car and it doesn't work...why because it was bad from the factory it was made in. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. You may be seeing some bad memory maybe. Works fine till put under a load. Maybe there are 2 differnt types of memory in the machine. Stuff like that is hard to determine the cause. I'm just trying to make that point that it could be anything, no matter how old you computer is, or what you have done to stop your computer from crashing. I understand time is money and for you to try and diagnose your problem is costly to you. I Totally understand, but if you are certain that the install is good then I would start looking at the hardware...just a thought. Have you sent these files to your VAR and see if they crash using it? If they do, then it can be sent in and maybe get fixed in a future release.

Just trying to help

Lee,

Question 1:
I don't run that program. SW will let me know when the files I open up are going to be updated. I lookat it like this. If you haven't full tesed a new release of SW then, and you run that program. You find out later that you can't use it...your SOL now...you have to use it no matter what, unless you want to use dumb solids. I do tests to test a new release out, but I only use Copied parts and assemblies. I make sure that the &quot;File\Find References&quot; is correct before saving in a new version.

Question 2:
I don't crash often enough. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones but have pushed my machine and software and it runs alright for me.


Again, maybe I'm just lucky, but in my first post, all I was trying to say was try this and see if it helps you. If it doesn't then in that FAQ there is instructions on how to undo what you just did.

Best Regards to you all and Good luck today and every day when running and using SW!

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[josephv]

Hello Ed,

Have you talked to your VAR about the problems you are having?

Have they visited you and tried to help you?

Have you talked to the SolidWorks regional manager?

Have you sent your files to SolidWorks Support?

What has SolidWorks support said about your problems?


Hello macPT,

The Oxygen is very old technology. It was good for its time though. Please look into the ATI FireGL 8800 or the nVidia Quadro.

Cheers,

Joseph

 

[EdDanzer]

Lee,
What CMOS settings cause crashing?
As for the converter, it is a joke. We pushed for that product only to find if there is any error created during the update process you are screwed. Some of the products we have created in SolidWorks only get opened when required. In December 1999 we spent over 100 man hours ($6,000.00) to update all the files. Only about 90% were actually competed because of assembly problems that we didn't have time to fix.

Joe,
In the past we had very little success with the VAR or SolidWorks. I have been to SolidWorks 3 different times showing, and explaining problems, only to see changes to the software that makes using it cost more. Until 1999 we spent at least $2,000.00 per year in engineering time trying to work with these people to fix problems only to see no end in site.
The current Dell box is a 2.4 Ghz Xeon, has a Nvidia Quatro 4 900 XGL video card, 1.5 Gb of ram.

As to the replicating the problem, when you are doing full tilt design it is hard to track what causes the problem. Some years ago we found if a certain sequence of key strokes were done Windows would give the blue screen of death, we found this would happen with SolidWorks, Excel, and Word. It took days to figure this out, and turned out to be a DLL problem in NT 5.0, then it took over 6 months for a patch to arrive.

The current problem is we do not have the resources to have increased costs, our customers want more for less, yet SolidWorks gives less for more. Unless you are in management and are required to break down your costs to verify your purchases, and labor charge to a project you may be unaware of the actual cost of using SolidWorks. This costing includes number of hours of use of each software package, learning time, actual time spent doing specific tasks and comparing current cost to past projects.

If you bought a new car and had to spend 20%+ of your time working on fixing it would you be happy?

 

[StarrRider]

EdDanzer

I would help if I could, but I’m straight SW – No Cosmos, Cosmic, or Comic knowledge stored here. I tried doing a search in Google Comp.Cad.SolidWorks for Cosmos Error and Cosmos Settings – It did pull up a lot of threads but nothing that will be any help to you

Good Luck

Lee

The best leaders inspire by example. When that is not an option, brute force and intimidation works pretty well, too.

 

[josephv]

Hello Ed,

To answer your question:

If you bought a new car and had to spend 20%+ of your time working on fixing it would you be happy?

No I would not be a happy customer.

Here is another question:

If you had serious problems with SolidWorks, what action should you take?

I would have the VAR tech team and the SolidWorks regional representative in my office helping me solve this problem.

cheers,

Joseph

 

[EdDanzer]

It is difficult to send a 25 Mb file to the VAR or SolidWorks, in the past we sent Zip disks, but that takes time and costs money.
Over the years we ask SolidWorks to send a person out to monitor what we do to test what causes crashing, having flown from Seattle, WA to Concord 3 times, and sent 10 to 20 zip disk, how much more can a 2 seat company do?
If a vendor continues to make poor quality stuff, you quit using them, which brings me back to the original question.
How much crap should a person put up with before you give up.

 

[josephv]

Hello Ed,

If I was your VAR, I would be visiting you right now. Why aren't they visiting you? The number of seats you have should not be an issue, you are entitled to support.

I hate to say this, but if your VAR will not visit you, perhaps you should consider switching to a VAR that will visit you.

Best wishes, I understand your frustration.

Joseph