SW 2007 - Random Crashing??

[woolly]

We have 10 seats of SW 07 pro & 1 off SW 07 premium. The premium edition randomly crashes for no apparant reason when the software isn't being used. The workstation has a AMD processor, 4Gb of RAM, ATi 7100 graphincs card on Windows XP Pro (now on sp2).

There is no real pattern to when and how it crashes, but he is able to save the model whilst it tells him it has crashed!! Sometimes SW dies, sometimes the workstation dies totally.

If anyone has any ideas or has seen this happen let me know. Our support guys have been through all channels with software & hardware settings, the next step is a nuke & re-install of everything.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The following may not be relevant in your case, but is from the View Notes at

http://solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html#

For stability of the graphics subsystem when using 3GB mode, add /USERVA=2900 after /3GB to the boot.ini entry.

 

[woolly]

Sorry I forgot to mention, we are using Windows XP Pro - 64 bit, so the memory shouldn't be an issue.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

In that case I assume that machine is NOT using the /3GB switch and that it IS using the 8.163.1 video card driver?

Are you using SP4?

Are all the add-ins not being used in the current session deselected?

If yes to above questions, I would take "the next step".

 

[woolly]

Yes on graphics card & sp4, now trying the add-ins, switched them all off, and back on 1 at a time.

 

[SincoTC]

wooley,

Did you see my comments about the certified 8.163.1 video card driver in response to your posting "SW 2007 x64 Graphics probelms ATi card" last April?

It may be certified but it doesn't work on my system, crashing at least four or five times a day. I have been using the uncertified 8.323.0.0 (6/12/2006) from the ATI site for four months now and and it has only crashed twice in all that time!

Also, have you tried switching to "Use Software OpenGL" under "Tools> Options> System Options> Performance"? You must do this BEFORE you open any files or it will probablly be greyed out. If it's stable with this option on, then it's almost certainly a Video Card driver problem.

Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments, UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP3.1 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You could also try swapping the card with one from a stable system. Do you have any nVidia cards to try?

 

[woolly]

SincoTC - We did try the later driver & the Open GL option, at that time we found it was a driver installation problem. This particular machine has had the latest driver & the certified driver, but in this situation it doesn't seem to make any difference.

CorBlimeyLimey - We have nVidia cards but they are all being used at the moment, if we get the opportunity we'll give it a go.

Thanks

Woolly

 

[SBaugh]

There was another person having a problem with his computer crashing here recently. One of the suggestions was the power supply. Because you mentioned its not just SW but the entire machine. I don't think SW is the problem here. Simply because you said your system has crashed to. Yes SW might have been running, but SW is demanding on hardware even 64-bit. So if the power supply can't hold the load or its overheating, then it might be the reason. But really it could be a lot of other ones, but that is one I would look into.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
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