Assembly crash - out of memory error

[patryn]

solidworks 2006 sp 3.0

my coworker is having an assembly file crash on him constantly. he will try to mate and the program stalls, then flashes an out of memory error message. this is on a machine with 4 gigs of memory. the only thing we could deduce is that the assembly file is corrupt. however, i tried it on my machine and successfully mated two parts, albeit with a rather delayed time. he has tried repairing and reinstalling solidworks but w/o any change. any ideas as what would be causing it to eat up 4 gigs of memory?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Too many possibilities ... need more information;

See faq559-716 for typical list.



Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[Theophilus]

I'd guess you're not actually using that much RAM unless you're running Win 64-bit or other such OS. Otherwise, Windows hits a limit of 2GB RAM (or 3GB with a hack).

Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[marektb]

Did you check if all the memory chips are ok?
Worked on 4x256=1gb total, then switch to 4x1gb=4 gb total and was crashing all the time, after removing 2 chips and now on 2 gb no crach so far, so looks to me that at least one of removed chips was bad. Hope this help.

 

[dezignstuff]

The problem might be that your computer can't use 4 Gb of memory. SW will usually crash when you get to about 1.6-1.7 Gb of memory use for the SW process. Watch your task manager, under the Processes tab, in the Mem Usage column. It will just about crash on cue with a large assembly.

You can get about another gig of usable memory by using the 3 Gb switch:

http://www.d-digest.com/ssa/v3i2/mo...=============================================

 

[mmurphy50]

we were having this same error. We reported it to our VAR and it is a problem with SP 3.0. An SPR has been issued.

 

[patryn]

thanks for the input guys. the memory checks out. we actually pulled the sticks and installed his original 512mb stick and tried it on that and it did the exact same thing, it just crashed faster. this guy is like a jakchammer when it comes to computers, so i haven't ruled out the possibility of user issues. however since i was able to change the file, i figured it was his machine.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

mmurphy50 and patryn ... just out of interest, what are your system specs? Also what is the SPR number?


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[patryn]

my coworkers computer is a dell. 3.2ghz pentium, 128mb radeon, 4gb ram. not sure what you mean by spr so i'll through the ignorance card. if you are referrring to our solidworks version, it's listed in the original post.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

SPR = Software Performance Report. mmurphy50 said one had been issued for the problem.

None of the Radeon cards are recommended by SW, although some of them have been "passed with limitations".

Are you running Windows XP64? If you are not, the 4GB of RAM is useless. Regular XP32 only recognises 2GB & will only actually use about 1.6GB


Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[patryn]

i'm running a geforce with no problems. he has been running his radeon with no problems. no non-workstation grphics card is approved and i'm well aware of that. i run rivatuner and the soft-quadro mod on my 6800. however all gpu issues i've seen will cause artifacts, bounding boxes, or some other visual issue. it also offloads to the cpu so you see high cpu loads. however i haven't encountered anything where it affected memory.

i was wrong on the memory. he only had 2gb in. we left the 512mb stick in after we pulled the new memory sticks and put the old in. this jumping him to 2.5gb and he managed a little longer than with the 2gb. it seems to only be this one file. it isn't very complex either. tubular frame, some smartmate fasteners, an electric motor, and a few custom parts.

 

[mmurphy50]

The SPR number is 300303.

I'm running SWKS 2006 SP2.0 on a P4 2.8 with 2gb with an ATI FireGL X2 and Win XP SP1. I was running SP3 but re-installed back to SP2 due to the out of memory error.

 

[D3sign3r]

Yeah I was having similar problems with my machine when running Photoworks renderings. And my fairly new workstation kept crashing...(but worked on my co-workers brand new workstation). So I added the 3Gig switch to my boot.ini and bumped up my VM to 4096mb (both Initial & Maximum on my other partition).
Now i'm able to boost the renderings to max features without any issues.
Been running crash-free ever since.

pj

SW06-sp3 Office Pro.
P4-3.2ghz
2gig mem
ATI FireGL X1

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

mmurphy50 ... Your best bet would be to try the 3GB switch. However you will need to either upgrade to XP SP2 or get a patch for XP SP1.
Also increase you VM.

http://www.panoramafactory.com/discus/messages/17/313.html?1057432320

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[SolidAir]

An out of memory error can also mean system resources that Windows uses to display icons, background, buttons, etc. Does your user have a lot of icons on the desktop? What kind of background is displayed?

SA