PC spec for CAD

mystery_man

Hi

Quick question..

Customer of mine is using a cad system for desigining

Intel CORE i3 (i3-530 / Skt LGA1156) 8GB DDR3
Graphics Card: GeForce GT240 1GB PCIe
Monitor Options: 22 Widescreen LCD
Hard Drive 1000GB SATA
Operating System: Windows 7 Pro 64bit


They are having problems with it being slow only within the program. When they make changes to designs or when they are drawing new designs.

I am not too high up on CAD but this spec was ok'd by the software providers.

Is there anything else that could be causing it to be slow?

Lu Tze

What version of CAD are they using? Can't imagine that spec would be that slow, although it is a duel core. Any info on the hard drive? if it is an eco/green poweer saving model they will often have slow seek/read/write times.

Though my bet is they are working of the server, xrefs of mapping images which are loaded over the network can be slow.

mystery_man

Lu Tze wrote: »

What version of CAD are they using? Can't imagine that spec would be that slow, although it is a duel core. Any info on the hard drive? if it is an eco/green poweer saving model they will often have slow seek/read/write times.

Though my bet is they are working of the server, xrefs of mapping images which are loaded over the network can be slow.

Thanks for your response.. Its a brand new CAD system.. Im not sure of the actual version but Id imagine its the latest(it would want to be for the price)and the company providing the software ok'd this spec.

The hard drive is a 1TB Sata drive. 7200rpm if Im not mistaken.

Its all on this machine also. No accessing over networks. That is why I cant understand whats causing the speed issues. And it only appears to be when using this software.

They are not running any other software on this machine apart from Office and anti virus(Avast Free I think)

Lu Tze

What kind of Cad work are they doing? Are they rendering in 3D or anything? What exactly is the problem, is it slow to load drawings or what? I have 2008 running on a core2duo machine and it runs fine, the only issue is xrefs loading off the network.

You could try running HDtune on the hard drive to see what sort of speeds they are getting off it? The newer cad packages might be more dependent on having more cores, and it is a duel core in the machine you had.

The anitvirus isn't running scans in the background or anything is it?

mystery_man

Lu Tze wrote: »

What kind of Cad work are they doing? Are they rendering in 3D or anything? What exactly is the problem, is it slow to load drawings or what? I have 2008 running on a core2duo machine and it runs fine, the only issue is xrefs loading off the network.

You could try running HDtune on the hard drive to see what sort of speeds they are getting off it? The newer cad packages might be more dependent on having more cores, and it is a duel core in the machine you had.

The anitvirus isn't running scans in the background or anything is it?

No anti virus is not running any scans.. Il get some more details of what it is they are actually doing with the software and I will run hdtune and come back to you.. thanks for your help I really appreciate it.

Lu Tze

I'm operating on guess work here - i use CAD but have limited IT knowledge.

Also type in 3dconfig and click the view tune log and post it up, you may need to update graphics drivers/use hardware acceleration

ryano77

if its just normal 2D autocad there should be no performance related problems. its only the heavy duty 3D packages that really tax the pc. im running revit architecture on a laptop with a much lower spec than yours and it runs fine most of the time apart from when it comes to rendering

BostonB

First check would be he GFX drivers.

Mellor

What ever the problem, i can guarantee that its not the PC spec, 8GB harddrive, 1tb HD etc

think about it, cad ran fine a few years ago and now of this was available for regular PCs.

I comfortable ran cad on a laptop running 1gb ram with a 2Ghz processor and a 80Gb HD

BostonB

New versions of software often needs more powerful hardware. Office 2010 is far more demanding on hardware than say office 2003.

This spec though looks ok. However CAD is very particular about graphic card drivers. The right driver makes all the difference.

plenderj

I can't remember where exactly, but in the options menu there are options for CAD performance. You can turn on hardware rendering, and specify how to degrade visuals to maintain performance etc.

Try fiddling with the options there

Mellor

I know that, as with win 98/xp/viata etc they all take up more space on disk and more ram.
But not to the extent that the OP spec wouldn't run smooth. You are right, it could be an issue beyond memory, cpu or harddrive (such as graphic drivers if using 3D intensive stuff)

Lu Tze

Mellor wrote: »

I know that, as with win 98/xp/viata etc they all take up more space on disk and more ram.
But not to the extent that the OP spec wouldn't run smooth. You are right, it could be an issue beyond memory, cpu or harddrive (such as graphic drivers if using 3D intensive stuff)

It should still run well enough except in rendering though should it not? My be faulty memory, if no other program on the machine uses that much RAM it might be why it is only affecting autocad

plenderj

Another interesting thing to check would be the CPU usage when it's apparently doing work. Open up task manager, and then the Processes tab. Sort by % cpu time in descending order.

System Idle Process should be at the top with 99% when the computer is doing no work. Change something in CAD that would cause it to start doing work.

Is the CPU time going to CAD? If so, then perhaps the CAD drawing is prohibitively large or something? Does this happen on new drawings, or only this one drawing? Can they create a new drawing from scratch? How large is the drawing on the disk?

If the CPU time is going to the System process, then it could be a driver issue. Try using dpclat.exe (google for it) and you'll see if it's a driver issue.

If it's not CPU, then it could be an IO bound operation causing it to halt. For example, there could be an x-ref that was originally taken from a network path, but that path is no longer available. So when CAD is making changes it's trying to read from the network path etc.
Creating a new drawing would probably solve this issue too.