Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations waross on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Survey: How often does Solidworks crash on you? 10

Status
Not open for further replies.
cmm

cmm

Mechanical
Jan 11, 2002
95
0
0
US
SW2005-SP1.1 crashes 2 to 3 times per day on my computer and on my coworker's computer. Every time it crashes it gives the "unhandled error" message. We have the exact same setup, which is:

Athlon 64 3400+
1.5 GB RAM
Quadro FX700 with the latest SW-certified driver
WinXP Pro with all updates

I've used Solidworks every work day for the last 3.5 years, and though it has crashed many times I've never experienced a crash frequency quite this high.


Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
Do you have lots of add-ins turned on with SolidWorks, like
animator, utilities etc. I find SW to be more stable when I'm just running what I need
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dell Workstation Xeon CPU 3.2GHz, 2.0GB of RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX3000 with 256MB, video driver version 6.14.10.5303.

I use SolidWorks2005 SP1.1 8-10 hours a day every day.I hardly crash, maybe once a week or once every two weeks. I enjoyed the same level of stability with SW2004. What is strange is that people around me with identical machines, installation and setup crash 2-3 times a day.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solidworks runs all the time and sometimes I have 2 sessions open (SW03, SW04 or SW05). I also have numerous Windows explorer's up, MS Outlook 2000, 1-2 Windows of Internet Explorer, Open Emails that I'm currrently writing.

That's a normal day for me, sometimes there is more then that running.

I run all this on my latest computer (Until I can get my other one back up and running) on 512RAM. I run the smae processes on another machine with 1Gig RAM.

My biggest issue has been hardware failure lately. I have had HDD fail Completely (unable to access it) and the video card fan went out. SW never caused any of this, just Hardware failure. This can happen to anyone and no one thinks about HW as being the problem. They immediately blame the software.



cmm,

Check your RAM to make sure you don't have a mixture of types and speeds. That will cause crashing.


Check out these sites on RAM.

List your Hardware and maybe that will help us.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies
faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
There are good policies that must be considered in order to SW run smoothly. I think the difference between SW stability for different users, even with identicall machines, as to do if these policies are followed or not.

Things like good modeling (avoiding the use of features and mates with errors), correct mouse clicking (avoiding the clicking on everything on the screen, specially when SW is busy), keepping TEMP and BACKUP folders clean, avoiding messy installations (not only for SW, but for all installed software), avoid instalation of software not needed to work (like games, funny themes, funny screensavers,...), run add-ins and other software, with SW running, on a "as needed" basis,...

REgards
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I manage to get a least one crash per week, but I have to admit it might be my hurry up attitude rather than software or hardware.

XP Pro SP2
SW 2005 SP1.1
512mb ram (I know I need more)
Matrox P650
Logitech Marble Mouse
Cadman
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I always have PhotoWorks, eDrawings, Utilities, and Toolbox added in. If I use the others (rare), I don't keep them added in.

I think there is a lot to be said for good practices and methodology. Sloppy models/assemblies really should give you problems since they're full of logic bugs. My models are always clean--no exceptions. I'm amazed how often I'm asked to work on dirty files by clients and I don't know how they can tolerate such sloppy work. I've even found completely unmated parts within an assembly in which several parts are driven by the geometry of other floating parts in the assembly. What happens if I accidentally click-on and move a part? All geometry is updated and I cannot figure out what I had in the first place. Worse, I might not even know I moved something. This is foolish practice during development. We reap what we sow (not that sloppiness is the sole root to everyone's problem).


Jeff Mowry
Reality is no respecter of good intentions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I have almost all the Add-ins all the time and I"m using Solidworks Preimum which comes with Cosmosworks in it.

macPT and Theophilus are correct! Bad modelling practices can lead to crashing and in stablity. SW is always ahrping on Design intent. Well this is where DT comes into play also. Bad modeling can lead to instabilty.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies
faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Most of the crashes I have some from files that were created in SW2003, then opened in SW2005.
I also agree with bad modelling practices causing crashes.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP0.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SW 2004 sp3.0 crashes on me about 3-4 a week, Averaging about 5 hours a day of work over the week. It seems to pick certain days to act up. it'll go good for a few days then one day it just does not feel like working.

pentium 4 2.6
QUATTRO vp960 WILDCAT
1 gig ram
xp pro sp1
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Apparently 2004 was not optimized for hyper-threading, so it was recommended to turn it off, for example


But a few fellow co-workers who went to the Solidworks World were told that 2005 takes advantage of hyperthreading, especially in rendering. A speed increase is noticeable when it is on in 2005

Flores
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I have been told otherwise about Hyperthreading from SW. Hyperthreading is like Dual processors. SW doens't take advantage of Dual processors because it's a multi-thread ed application. However you can run SW and CosmosWorks and Then you see and advantage of Multi processors. This works the same for hyperthreading. Your Processors only works at half of what it would if hyperthreading was off.

To turn it off you must do it a the boot of your computer. Enter the Bios and you can disable in there.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [pc2]
3DVision Technologies
faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
smcadman, your coworkers may have slightly (only slightly) been mistaken.

I was at the conference and was told that SWx (any version) only takes advantage of hyperthreading IF you are rendering or running FEA analysis (unless I'm mistaken?)

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If it's like dual processors, it definitely applies to rendering--big time. Photoworks uses both processors, so would also make use of hyperthreading, if that's some sort of similar process.

I'm on a single AMD Opteron 64-bit chip now, so that's moot.


Jeff Mowry
Reality is no respecter of good intentions.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SW2005, SP1.1 crashes about 3-4 times a week but, there
are some weeks when it didn't crash all. Some of the
Models I have to work on are very poorly modelled by
other Designers. When I clean them up everything is much
better. I find that in the late afternoon that SW gets
very slow because I have to work off the Network here.
I have the following computer.

P4 2.53Ghz
1.5Gb RIMM RAM
ATI FIRE GL 8800
5.12.2195.3056 DRIVER
60Gb HARD DRIVE
WINDOWS 2000

Any suggestions on what I can get the I.T. guys to do to
improve my computer would be welcomed.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
aamoroso, yes I got Version 5, SP4. I wanted the I.T.
guys to upgrade me to Windows XP Pro and change my ATI
card to a Nvidia card (Quadro4 FX500) but they said there
would not be any benefit for me. I would really not work
on the Network (too slow) but the Designers were told that
we had to, sometimes we have to wait up to 15 minutes for
an small Assembly to open in Lightweight. Thanks for your
advice.

Ralph Wright, C.E.T.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I know this is a Solidworks thread, but I am a Solid Edge user surprised at the stability issues reported here.

Although lacking in market share and awareness, Solid Edge is apparantly much stronger in stability. I am used to 1-2 crashes a month. This is from experience with versions 12 up to 16.

I guess this is what happens when you spend more money on marketing and less on development. Works is a good product, but I am sorry to hear about the quality issues you have to deal with. Hopefully they change there business model at some point and focus on existing customers and not future customers.

New computer viruses? That could be nice.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

RobWard
  • Question
Solidworks 2024 minimising on opening files
Replies
2
Views
35
RobWard
RobWard
JerryWong
  • Locked
  • Question
How to import attributes pre-defined in Solidworks? 4
Replies
8
Views
37
JerryWong
JerryWong
drawoh
  • Locked
  • Question
SolidWorks Flexible Parts
2
Replies
20
Views
82
SBaugh
SBaugh
jassco
  • Question
Solidworks VBA to GET and SET dimensions on a sketch in an assembly model
Replies
1
Views
30
jassco
jassco
CAD2015
  • Locked
  • Question
How to count the components in a SolidWorks assembly? 2
Replies
8
Views
42
CAD2015
CAD2015
Back
Top