excel design table coruption in solidworks

[sojouner]

We have a brand new p4 2.6 compaq (rhymes with crap) running xp(pro) and sw2003 (sp3) when head designer does his design tables on that comp the model works fine , the way we want it to.
then when he copies it over to our sever and I use the model and make drawings the configs that he has inserted have for some reason become corrupt.
1)we initialy thought that it was excel 97 but when we checked the model on the other machine p3 800mhz 512 ram excel 97 sp-2 the same prob occurs . design table and configs fall over .
2)also our 2 p3 800s crash all the time when we try to manipulate those models .
3) the video cards in the p3s are 3d labs oxygen VX1 s (32meg) could these cards be causing a problem as well?
4) our server is crap ,We are hoping to get that replaced soon( believe that when we see it.)
I would appreciate any suggestions and just to let you know the job that I am doing should have taken me about a day but so far it has taken me 2 days and I'm not going to get it finished untill probably Tuesday at the earliest.
]5) we are pretty sure that it is the network that causes the majority of our problems.It is quite old it has only 1 10meg lan card feeding 3 sw machines on 100 meg cards + it is linked to about 15 other terminals some dumb and some admin machines .also it is often accessed by our sales office in another town.
3)I can open up the Design table when i have opened it on my comp (the design tables look different some things are just not there or suppressed when they are suposed to be resolved.)
4)temp files are cleaned out (one of the first things we did)
we also created an "I" drive on the p4 machine saved the DT to that drive and changed the reference in the model to point to that xls file (same problems)
machines are connected through a hub not the server.
the 2 p3 machines are running nt 4 sp-6 .
excel is 97 sp-2. this was also one of the first things we checked on (thanks to me reading threads on this site , thanks guys >)
thanks for the help!
brett

 

[Focht3]

While the older machines may be "crap", I doubt that the hardware is your problem. And it probably is not the OS - I expect that the problem lies with Excel - and translations between the versions.

Try writing the Excel file to Lotus 1-2-3 v. 1.0a format. You will lose macros, graphics, etc. - but this is a very stable spreadsheet format for conversions. If all the different versions see the same thing from this file, I'd report the problem to M$.

 

[sojouner]

thanks focht
the problem is excel 97 sp2 is on all the machines so in my book there should be no translation probs .
we have cut and pasted from 1 copy(original that works) to the one on the server (gets corrupted?).
we have also pointed the model to the excel sheet on the P4 machine but the same things happen (comps not linked through server but through seperate hub).
which speaks to me that there has to be a problem on my comp(p3800) or there is coruption occuring whistle being sent along the pipes .
has anybody had similar probs?
the model only consists of about 12 parts with about 6 configs of each part.
thanks
brett
p.s. Sorry if i sound rude but this prob has cost me about 3 days so far and I'm getting annoyed with it.

 

[sc]

Try copying the required file directly from where it is originating onto a floppy disk or CD. This will bypass the server and the network and should as a result bypass any problems that they may be generating.

If this solves the problem, then get stuck into the IT manager about how much time the dodgy setup has cost and refuse to use the system until it is fixed (still do the work, but transfer files by CD or disk). I know its a pain but unless you cause some waves for the IT manager it is unlikely that the server/network related problems will be resolved in a hurry.

Goodluck

sc

 

[sojouner]

thanks SC for the suggestion I"m going to do that .the problem is not the it manager its the bean counters above her that are the problem. what we are going to do this week is count how many times we crash (each) and how long it takes to save and how long it takes to upload the files we use .it should give us an indication of how much this "little" problem is costing the company. then the bean counters can do the maths.
thanks
Brett