A strange one for you...

Hi All,

I've been trying to help an outfit diagnose a Solidworks problem they
have been having. For them Solidworks has been crashing on a very
regular basis for about the 12 months they have been using it. We are
talking 2-3 crash to desktops per day, far more regular instability
inside Solidworks such as mates not solving, but a close, open and
they will. It got to the point that they were resinatlling Solidworks
from an Admin image once a week! Also this was happening in 2007 and
2008.

I could not help them, their VAR could not help them. Everything that
was offered to try and diagnose their problem they had either tried or
didn't work. I ruled out solidworks as I could not get repeatability
on my system. I ruled out Windows as they had tried reinstalling many
times. They ruled out hardware as this has been happening on numerous
machines from different manufacturers.

So what was the one thing that was common? The location of the design
office. Turns out the main power supply to the building was on the
other side of the wall to the computers (2x 60A breakers so nothing
huge) They have since shifted the compuetrs away from the evil
electrical feild and bam.. 2 weeks with no crashing!

Food for thought.. goes to show just how sensitive the average
computer is to electrical interfereance and the random software
problems this can cause!

Ian.

 

No way ....

Are sure they didn't just updated all the old files to current version?



I can't believe that two 60A breakers make so much noise to crash PC (we got bigger breakers in computer room), unless
the PC is just a mother board without case seating on the top of that 100A transformer connected to the breakers with
bad ground

LOL

For seek of experiment can you ask them to move the PC back and see if they get it to start crashing again?

If it crashes, then they need a visit from electrician

 

I think it would be hard to get them to move the computer back...

Apparently one employee rembered long ago having trouble running ansys
in the same location. This was that reason they thought they would try
it.

With the question about the version... We are talking pretty simple
part and assembly modelling. The problem was rampant on 2007 and their
VAR convinced them to move to 2008 and problems were still there.

I have suggested they get an electricion to measure the electrical
feild in the location of the computer but not sure if they are going
to do this or not. I have since spoken to our IT guy about it and he
said he has heard of stranger things happening. One instance was where
a server would reset itself at 2am every morning. Eventually diagnosed
that it was a cop sitting outside doing his report it at the same time
every night. I'm not sure how much truth there is in that but there
you go.

I remember seeing a video on the net where a cell phone shut down a
computer when it rang as long as it was sitting right beside it...

 

Check ground connections. Box, cables, etc.