first of all I want to tell you what I do: starting from step files of PCBs generated by the electronic designer with Altium, I generate SW files, sometime take a lot of time.
so, below is the configuration of my system. what do you think about it? what should I change to become better? I think(I'm not an IT specialist) the video card. do you have any sygestions? right now i've finished the job, so I'll look tomorrow.
thank you all in advance for your answers.
eugen
thank you, I knew about Solidworks/System Requirements but I wanted the see some opinions because sometime when I generate the PCBs in SW from step file, it kills it. usually my assemblies don't exceed 1000 parts, however, I find that is pretty slow.
thanks.
Hello Eugen Popa.
8 GB RAM is ok, but you can just open up your bigest assembly and have a look at the task manager. If there is free RAM left, than you are fine!
You CPU is good, you want to have the best CPU as possible. Intel i7 2600 is pretty close.
Don’t buy a Intel i7 3770k, with is the best in your case if you have already the i7 2600. This is ok!
You need to buy a real workstation video card! Not a customer / gamer video card!
I will buy soon an AMD FirePro W5000.
If this is to expansive than the FirePro V4900 will get you the best for your money!
But please see these 2 threads in the Forum:
February 2013 Suggested Computer Specs
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/64437?tstart=0
February 2013 Best Video Cards
Thank you for your answer Stefan,
I've already seen the threads that you say but as I've said, I'm not an IT specialist and I wanted to see other opinions.
Thanks.
btw, I've looked in Task Manager, the Memory usage is ok, between 60 and 75% but the CPU usage 10%. However, PC is slow to save, to rebuild, etc. Why?
Hello Eugen.
You told me “PC is slow to save, to rebuild, etc.”
When you save / load thinks can you run solidworks in window mode and look in the taskmanager/ Network. Maybe your network is not good or the server where you store all the data is slow?¿
Hello Stefan,
Yes, that's also true. The network has some issues but we try to eliminate the problems one by one.
Thanks.
Lots of good info here: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/64437?start=0&tstart=0
And here: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/64436?start=0&tstart=0
thanks, I've already seen this.
Eugen,
What is slow for you? Opening files, rebuilding assemblies, rotating models? Working with drawings? Working with part files? The actual conversion from Altium to SolidWorks (If so, please describe, I don't use Altium)?
Hi Charles,
I'll give you an example: the electronic designer(that with Altium) gives me a step file of a PCB. From this step I do a conversion in SW. Ussually that creates a big assembly that I save as part. I'm a mechanical designer so I have to put together some PCBs and mechanical parts, usually sheet metal. So, an assembly like that, with few PCBs and few sheet metal parts is slow to: rebuild, save, even rotating.
Thanks.
Eugen,
We use the Desktop EDA link to generate models directly in SW from the Altium output, rather than using STEP, but I suspect that some of the things that slow us down will also slow you down. Unless we absolutely have to bring in the traces on the outer layers, we don't bring them in. All of those faces slow our systems down to a crawl, not only while building the PCB, but also while handling the assembly. Most of the time we just bring in the PCB as a simple shape with just the outline and mounting holes. Sometimes we bring in the pads to make sure that the leads or balls on the components match the pads. Sometimes we bring in the pads and the through holes, to make sure that we don't have soldering issues, or to make sure that the board can be waterproof. Sometimes, but very rarely, we bring in the pads and traces and through holes so that the model matches the completed part completely. Once we have checked to make sure that there aren't any problems, we go back to one of the simplified models for normal use.
Jerry S.
Hi Jerry,
I don't know what is Desktop EDA link but I'll try to find out. I'm a mechanical designer here so I need the PCB only to be sure there aren't some conflicts in my assemblies. There is someone else who design the PCBs with Altium. Yes, I try to do the PCB SW file as light as possible, I keep only the biggest components and I save those as parts. But I think those parts who have hundreds of faces slow down my computer. I've tried to find a way to do the PCBs lighter than that but I didn't find.
Thanks.
Eugen,
Look here for the link:
http://www.desktop-eda.com.au/products/protel-solidworks.htm
The parts on our PCAs don't cause us much difficulty, but we have fairly small boards (handheld products). It's the pads, traces and through holes, where you have 1000s of simple shapes, that slow us way down.
One other thing I might mention. We tried at one point to save the PCAs as a single part, instead of an assembly, in hopes that the system could handle the single part more easily. It turned out that we would waste an hour or so converting the assembly into a part, only to find that the single part actually slowed our machines down more than the assembly.
Jerry S.
Aa, ok, thank you Jerry. I've knew about Solidworks Modeler, I've found it several months ago here, on the forum. I tought to try the 15 days trial, I didn't do it yet.
Anyway, in SW I've had this impression also, that the PCB as part slows down the PC more than PCB as assembly, but I wasn't sure if is true or is only me. Usually I work with several PCBs (you can take a look at http://www.opal-rt.com/index) and an assembly with PCBs as assemblies will become huge, thousands of parts. So, I tought that it will be lighter if I use PCBs as parts. It seems that is not true.
Thanks.
Eugen
Eugen,
There is a good chance you could benefit from 16GB of RAM. You can test this out by running the SolidWorks performance monitor. If you are working, and this shows you using up almost all of your RAM, then you need to upgrade. This is a safe investment anyway.
You also need a professional video card. I suggest the ATI FirePro v4900. If you can, work with "shaded edges" off.
If saving/loading/etc is an issue, then an SSD is much faster than a hard disk. This is much more difficult to upgrade, but it will make a world of a difference. I cannot tell from your configuration if you have one, but if you don't know, you probably don't.
Thank you Charles. And thank you all for your suggestions.
I've already spoke with the IT administrator to upgrade at 16GB Ram, to buy a video card FirePro W5000 and an SSD.
We'll see after that.
Thank.
Eugen
Goto the Solidworks home page, goto support and under System Requirements you'll find a link to a page on Video cards which contains a list of certified adapters and drivers. You'll want to get an nVidia Quadro or ATI Fire Pro. Other than that, your machine looks fine for small to medium assemblies.