Large assembly huff and puff

Greetings. This is my first post here, and I'm also new to the drafting world in general (just finished school). Anyway, we have some rather large assemblies here where I work, most comprised of sub assemblies. In order to rotate the model we have to turn off the edges and just use the shaded model or it bogs down something fierce. Not to mention the 2 minute (no kidding here) save time. I'm running SW2009 64bit, no service pack on a Dell Precision T5400 with Quadcore 2.0ghz and Nvidia Quadro FX3700 graphics card, oh, and XP 64 bit. I was thinking there's enough computing power there, so maybe some tweaks can be made to smooth/speed things up. Most of the sub assemblies were done on older versions of SW, could that have anything to do with the lag? Thanks for any help.

For SW 2009 (64-bit), you should upgrade to the latest service pack, which is currently SP 4.1. I assume you have a least 4GB RAM, if not then add more RAM.

For SW 2009, sub-assemblies come into the main assembly as lightweight. This should be less demanding on your hardware resources. However, you may want to try the new SpeedPak option as discussed in this link: https://forum.solidworks.com/message/86838#86838

Thanks. There is 8GB in the computer, so that should be enough (I'd want more, especially using 64bit, why not). I think the sub's are already lightweight, but I'll have to check it out. I'm hesitant to install anything on this computer, being it's the biggest machine in the company, and I've never updated SW before. The person I replaced used to take care of these things, and I don't want to mess up the computer. I am still the FNG after all.

I wouldn't recommend an upgrade to a latest service pack if you are having memory issues with the current release. I have stopped at 2008 SP4 because each service pack bogged down my computer even more. SW is becoming a behemoth and in several forums people have spoken of the need for a separate system for their SW, and the other system for mail, web and office applications. Make sure nothing unnecessary is running while you work. Even the chatter from SW on the web can slow you down so disconnecting from the network may be an option.

Hello,

I skipped 2008 because of the memory issues you discussed. After my SW VAR indicated these problems where supposedly solved in SW 2009, I upgraded to SW 2009 starting with SP 2.0 (skipped SP 0.0 & 1.0).

I did have problems creating sweeps with SP 3.0 (64-bit), which was resolved with the SP 4.0 release. I would highly recommend turning off your anti-virus software when upgrading SolidWorks as it can cause installation problems.

I have noticed no performance issues with SW 2009 in comparison to SW 2007. SP 0.0 releases are known to be typically problematic.

I simply hate the fact that drawings are not backwards compatible and from year to year it seems the same old bugs are still around. Yay, we get new features but I wish SW would address some of the issues that prevail from release to release. And it's not a new problem....look at this rant from 2006!


(no editing performed on this)


"Directly, no you cannot save a solidworks file to an earlier
version. you CAN save it as a STL, IGES, PARASOLID, ACIS, or some other
standard, (which is much the same as what the previous poster suggested
using xchangeworks I believe) but the resuting geometry will no longer
be parametrically editable. what you can do is save it as an edrawing
and have him download the most recent edrawing viewer. this should
solve the connectivity issue as long as you don't need him to edit it.

This
is a major pain in the butt with solidworks and I have ranted to
everyone in the organization including the head honcho of Solidworks
about this. the stock answer is that you cannot represent new features
in the older version, but that is hogwash, you just make those
features, and ONLY those features that are not directly translatable
dump to imported geometry. Solidworks knows this, but the intent is to
force everyone to maintain a subscrlption service and to upgrade often.
but the problem is that the bugs in new releases usually make the new
release virtually unusable until sp 2 or so comes out. but then you
have problems where one company or division upgrades but the others
don't and suddently nobody with the older version can open any file
that has been touched by the newer version (just opening an assembly
wiill convert all the subassemblies and parts to the new version upon
closing.). I have that problem now, one engineer at another location
upgraded, forced the entire location to upgrade in order to work on his
stuff, and now nobody at my location can open any of thier stuff."

Edited by: Waidesworld

Well, I'm gonna' add another issue to my original post, and it is related. Seems roughly 75% of the time SW crashes right after I save. Now, it's good it saves first, then crashes, but it's so time consuming to reopen SW and then another min or two to reopen the file. Any suggestions?





Oh, and I tried the automatic update, didn't work. Can't remember why, but it didn't get very far.

If you are on SP 0.0, I am not surprised that the automatic update did not work. SP 0.0 typically have bugs and cause crashes. You will most likely need to manually download the latest service pack.

Go to the SolidWorks website (www.solidworks.com) and login (top of screen) to the SolidWorks Customer Portal. Go to downloads & updates and select the latest service pack for SW2009 and be sure to have your anti-virus disabled during SW install. Refer to the SolidWorks installation FAQs (https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/FAQ-installation.html) for more information.

I would select the version that does not require the CD / DVD. It will take longer to download, but I suspect the install will be less problematic.




Edited by: c_thompson_68