Graphics Card Issues

There's another possibility !

Are the chipset drivers even installed ? Most motherboards will "work" (sort of) without them. They run in kind of a limp home mode (slower than hell).

Look in the device manager and see if you have any yellow question marks in the tree.

Mark

"Brian" wrote in news:4589625b$ snipped-for-privacy@news.mcleodusa.net:

A slight slarification: VIA chipset drivers were called "4 in 1" because you could download 4 separate drivers in one package. Other chipset manufacturers have different names for similar packages.

Just for kicks, try a different video card and/or monitor to see if it does anything different. Maybe the video card is going bad. Also check to see if the sync rate of the card is ok with the monitor.

hiya

I've tried different monitors, cables, etc.

Seems like there's unfortunately no easy answer to this one, and I'm just going to have to go through and debug it myself (argh). I'd like to be able to hand this off to the shop where I bought my computer - they're pretty good, but experience tells me that I'll probably need to do it myself anyway.... looks like I'll be having a fun xmas!

Thanks for everyone's suggestions - if anyone else has a quick fix, I'm all ears!

j wrote:

Try running a program called file monitor, this may give a clue of what files are being affected, which in turn will give you a clue.

I had this type of problem when I have System mechanic installed, the system monitor part of the program kept on stalling, resulting in the glitches of the type you mention.

After both me and my computer shop completely tore the machine apart, and the shop replaced EVERYTHING, wiped the drive and reinstalled everything, they've finally come up with the issue. The graphics card seems to be a bum card (this is the THIRD one they've replaced in the system). The drivers seem to lag for some reason. Nvidia just asked for them to return the card, but after 3 swaps, I'm not convinced that it will do the trick.

It's a PNY Nvidia Quadro FX 1500 - a good card for the price range (the next one up is $500 more...)

Has anyone else had these kinds of problems with PNY/Nvidia cards, and if so, what did you do about them? What has been people's experience with the Fire GL cards?

pete the first wrote:

We don't have the FX 1500 but have had good luck with a range of other Nvidia cards going back to 1998. Right now we've got a Quadro 750 XGL, FX1400, and FX3500, as well as an FX Go 1400 on a notebook. We also have an ATI FireGL V3100 on our FEA machine. We do see graphics issues every now and then (yesterday my feature tree turned black, a new one, and I restarted SW to get it back), but we haven't felt like the issues were big enough to get excited about. The ATI machine doesn't get as much SW usage as the others, so it is hard to say if we have any more or less problems on it.

It seems to me that every release of SW requires more out of the graphics cards and has more graphics issues. We seem to see more slowdowns and short hang-ups with SW07 than with SW06 or SW04.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Jerry, if you think SolidWorks requires a lot of graphics cards, take a look at what VISTA IS GOING TO NEED!

Prof. Peter Gutman was like Jack Webb, "Just the facts mam."

Bo

Jerry Steiger wrote:

& if Vista is not enough, wait till you read this. I'm not even going to tell you what it is but it comes from Walter Mossberg's column in the WSJ.

Good Luck - Bo

Bo wrote:

I have used a variety of nVidia cards and have been well pleased. We also have 4 machines running here with FireGL cards and they also have run well.

WT

I've always been a big fan of Nvidia, but with several past experiences, I'm not so sure about them anymore. My last card (Quadro FX750) has an unbalanced fan that makes a heck of a lot of noise until it runs for a bit, and with the latest experience, I've replaced the quadroFX 1500 3 times so far....All that Nvidia says is 'it's a bad card', referring to the particular card in my machine, but I'm gaining more confidence that it's just an overall bad product offering.

I think I may try the FireGL.....

Wayne Tiffany wrote:

Bo,

Did you actually read this ??? UNBELIEVABLE !!!!

To me it reads like a Vista computer will be nothing more than a VERY expensive DVD player for playing "premium" content. The constant CPU overhead, accociated with the verification/encription will make the machine usless as a computer !!

Also any violation of the hard coded security rules will shut your computer down. A bad addin card can cause this !!! because of all this, most hardware will have to be re-engineered in a very expensive way.

In a nutshell, the entertainment industry is dictating the details of hardware, and software design.

Linux or Mac, here I come. Any one who ports a mainstream CAD package to either of these platform will make a fortune in the next couple of years.

Mark

Mark, I read the whole long VISTA-DRM article and I was not bored, and I am already using a Mac.

I simply do not understand how Microsoft & Media Companies could think they could get away with this. Lots of companies would not accept VISTA's inner workings, or could not in my estimation. Tell me how a company with vital data which was never allowed on the Internet could use VISTA? I'm talking about small companies and not Fortune 500 who get site license treatment.

I really wonder if Ballmer is getting ALL of his consumer feedback from his mirror when he shaves each morning. I never trusted him before and this just confirms my worst fears.

MS Office 2007 also throws out the prior menu systems as I've read, meaning a training curve for everyone who moves to the updated MS Office products.

This is what happens when a company has 80%+ market share and can just dictate what goes on, and thinks people are NOT going to have a choice to do anything else.

XP & SolidWorks 2006 looks like it is going to have a VERY long life for me.

Bo

MM wrote:

Mark, you noted:

Mark, what I know is that a lot of the majors in 3D CAD still run on Unix, hence the 3D CAD software houses are mostly already there. All the original programmers of SolidWorks came from Unix @ Computervision, as I recall from a friend who worked there with the SolidWorks Pres. & team which moved over from Computervision.

My guess is that with a concerted effort, SolidWorks could be available for UNIX within 12-24 months, because I think it is likely to be already planned, and possibly even been courted by Steve Jobs. Why would John McEleney do it? The President of SolidWorks knows the world turns and OS's come and go, watches his competitors (many on Unix), and you have to maintain a backup plan. The rise of Linux & surge of Apple's Unix, plus countries in the world which are deliberately setting a pace to move away from Microsoft means that SolidWorks MUST HAVE A SOLUTION for those users, or Lose that Market!

There is no other option. This is not rocket science or ESP. China anyone? China is now setting its own video DVD standard. What happens when China dictates a move to Linux-Unix in certain areas, if for no other reason than to be able to use inexpensive PCs made in China without all the VISTA DRM CRAP? Do you realize what cost reductions that would represent for China, to do everything in China with their own Linux-Unix, motherboards, CPU chips. You know Chinese entrepeneurs are looking at these options. When will a well funded Chinese startup, just like SolidWorks was almost 15 years ago, bring out THEIR homegrown

3D CAD in China?

If I were SolidWorks Pres., I would be doing strategic planning games virtually non-stop, with a lot of different forms of competitive information analysis & then trying to estimate how SolidWorks could keep up over time. Studebakers to Stutz Bearcats are ALL GONE. Only a few brands of automobiles have survived (& some on their last legs) 100 years. Lots of 3D Solids software companies have already folded or stopped developing their 3D CAD application (Even on the Mac, recall In-CAD in early 90s?).

Toyota rose from obscurity in virtually 30 years to virtually become the market volume & quality leader from small to luxury products, because the 'old guard' let their Guard Down.

Is SolidWorks going to go the way of GM & Ford because it let its guard down?

Apple kept working on Mac OS's that ran on Intel boxes for years in the background without telling anyone. They had many years experience before they released MacIntels. That was the perfect way to do it.

Why run SolidWorks in Mac OSX?

Apple is:

1. Doing rock solid hardware w/warranties that work
2. Darn near bulletproof Unix based OS (thanks to Bill Joy of Sun for early BSD work) compared to Win XP, and it is no slug, partially because they limit the hardware it runs with to a manageable number of options, as opposed to Windows.
3. Consistent Interface issues making easy OS, Application & Networking that gets out of your way (There are things on WinXP on my Dell that inexplicably do NOT work including WiFi, and I'm not going to reinstall the whole damn OS to try to fix it: I have NEVER seen such a thing on any Mac).
4. Handles Unix appls w/minimal fuss.
5. Running any version of Windows I'ld want to run native or in virtualization
6. Putting Apple stores on the map, because they deliver: sales, support, service, training, and subscription support for consultation and training, along with rock solid email servers and web hosting for small stuff people want to do (as a subscription service).
7. Put up as few dialog boxes as possible and when they do, they usually give you rational understandable choices (at least compared to Win XP with SolidWorks). One or two times in Mac OSX since 2000, I have seen a black and white error screen when something really bad crashed the OS, and I consider that insignificant, in that a reboot was all that was required to get back to work.)
8. Handles security far faster and better than other OSs I use.
9. Lack of Manuals: That is an advantage? Yes! I have not had to read a Mac manual on the OS or applications since the cursory review I did on first trying OSX in about 2001. Virtually no manuals read and studied since that time. To me that is incredible, compared to other eras.

SolidWorks could do a lot by being on Linux-Unix, but it just depends on long term committment. Microsoft blows so much smoke about what it is going to do, that software developers are affected by the 2nd hand smoke, they get dizzy, and sucked in on Ballmer's next inhalation.

Between Free OSs, and OSs created &/or tuned to local foreign languages and governments, Microsoft is going to become a minority player within

10-20 years is my guess (pure guess, without market survey info).

Enough - Bo

MM wrote:

strange..... i've just bought and installed the Nvidia Quadro FX1500 together with an ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe mobo featuring AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+, and they work perfect with Windows XP Pro x64 and SW2007 x64 SP2.......

I am just about to order a Dell Precision 390 - Intel Core2 Duo E6600 with a nVidia Quadro FX3500. Info if anyone has had a problem with this card would be welcome.