busy hard drive

[david]

We are running mill 8.1 level 3 with 2000 professional. The processor is 933 mhz with 1 gig of ram. Just installed the extra 512mb of ram to get the 1 gig but this did not help with our troubles. Video card is a 3d Oxygen Lab(I think this is the correct wording). Main Menu-Screen-Config settings are using 256mb of ram. From time to time we have to drip feed up to three machining centers at the same time and communicate with a 4th vmc and still create programs on the same computer.

 

Our problem is if mastercam is minimized with the "-" icon at the top right corner, the hard drive is so busy minimizing the window that dnc information stops long enough to alarm out at the mill. Hard drive light comes on even if no other programs are running. If you click the icon next to the "start" icon,"show desktop" icon, the window minimizes in a couple of seconds without any problems. I was wondering if anyone else has run into this situation. Is this an OS problem?

 

Thanks for any response.

 

David

[Catman]

What kind of motherboard are you using? Looks like you need to update some drivers for your motherdoard.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

David,

 

From my experience it has always been "iffy" doing DNC and CAD/CAM on the same computer. Can it be done? Yes, Should it be done? Not in my opinion. You're much better of getting an old clunker and making that your DNC computer. Even with that high horsepower PC you have with all that RAM, it still does not change that for a few seconds the CPU will be focused on Minimizing Mastercam.

 

One thing you can try though is in the system performance settings you can specify optimization types (i.e background services, etc...)

 

HTH

[limitless creativity]

I agree with James, Buy another computer for DNC, The money spent on ram upgrade would be close to get a low end PC.

 

This would save the hassles of error.

 

Mike

[cadcam]

I am going to agree from my time as a Mold maker using mastercam for programming and DNC for many years.

 

So follow james .

[Fig sign]

David!

Follow James !

There is no special needs for comp to do dnc.

I used to do DNC with all sort of old scrap like 386 with 4mb RAM under dos or Macintosh plus under

MacOS 6.

Worked great .

Nowadays PentiumS 100MHZ with 16 RAM costs nothing put in it win95 and do what you like.

[jeff]

David,

Instead of minimizing,

how about trying the "show desktop" icon in the quick launch toolbar next to the start button.

That way you can easily get out of the program you're working on and move to another.

HTH.

[Scott Bond]

Good Morning

 

I use a seat of draft,a 486,a cart,and a short cord,cycle start.

[david]

Thanks for the prompt replies.

 

We are trying to use the "show desktop" icon to minimize the window but sometimes old habits die hard. Did a little experiment today with one of our engineers computer that has Mastercam loaded on it. Pulled up a simple cad drawing on my computer with no toolpaths, then minimized using "-" and the hard drive light lit up about 3 seconds. Then I went to the engineers computer and opened a complex 3D salad dressing bottle and hit "-", hard drive light bearly blinked. Both computers have the same OS. He has a faster processor though. I will do some checking into setting up another computer to communicate with.

 

Thanks again to all,

 

David