Computer locks up with MC in background

[chris m]

Help

 

I have searched the forum history and do not see anything that resembles my issue:

 

When Mastercam is running and is the "primary" application everything works well. As soon as I jump into another program (Excel, Word, AutoCAD, whatever) but leave MC running in the background my machine locks and I have to power down and restart.

 

This only takes a very short time to happen; anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. We just got this seat installed in this computer and thought the problem was related to our ATi Rage video card but we changed the card and still have the problem (although all of the graphical problems we were having seem cured).

 

I am running a rebuilt Dell Dimension XPS T600 with a P4 600MHz processor, 384 RAM, NVidia GeForce 4 Ti4600, Win2000, V9SP1.

 

Any suggestions, ideas, etc?

 

Thanks

 

C

[Guest]

Sounds like a RAM problem to me.

Check your allocation levels and your usage level when these other applications are open with Mastercam. Your virtual memory may also need to be increased.

Do you have all the latest updates for all the drivers, applications, bios?

Are you running a Pro version of Windows?

[chris m]

Tom

 

Thanks for the advice, I'll ask my IT guy to look into that stuff as I'm not very savvy with the inner workings of the computer.

 

I am running Windows 2000 Professional; the only reason I know THAT is that a box pops up telling me so!

 

Anybody else out there have any other ideas; i bombed out twice on Saturday when I forgot about the problem and quickly jumped into another app "just for a minute"

 

C

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Currently, I'm typing while my part is verifying beind what I'm typing. I can actually see the progress ticking away down in the corner. I "Multi-task" all the time. I never have less than Mastercam and Outlook open. Usually, "My COmputer" is open as well. Never had any issues like what you mention. Tom had some good suggestions though.

[chris m]

James

 

It is very strange, Mastercam runs fine (even with 6 other apps minimized in the background) but as soon as something runs over MC, even my screensaver, BOOM!

 

I'll post the fix in this thread when we find it

 

C

[Guest]

chris,

I had a similar problem running some animated screen savers on 2000pro.

 

I do not have that happening with my XP machines. Even with the cool screen saver from NVIDIA http://nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=downloads_diversions

 

Try not running your screen saver. Newer monitors do not require them anyway.

[chris m]

Tom

 

My IT guy "tripled" the virtual memory (I don't know what the actual setting is) but the machine still locks up within 2 minutes of minimizing Mastercam. It did the same thing with the ATi Rage card that was in this machine before; we just bought the new card in an effort to solve this problem (along with multiple MC-related video probs). It does crash more quickly with the new card (as a bonus).

 

Could the screen saver affect this even when it isn't running? I will disable it and see what happens.

 

I'm also having new video probs in AutoCAD with the Nvidia card that I didn't have with the ATi; not a good week for me

[cadcam]

Are there restrictions on this computer buy the IT?

See if there is if so ask him to let you try it under Admin for a little while.

 

quote:

---

I am running a rebuilt Dell Dimension XPS T600 with a P4 600MHz processor, 384 RAM, NVidia GeForce 4 Ti4600, Win2000, V9SP1.

---

Oh by the way must of ment a 1.6 P4 there is no such thing as a P4 600.

 

Let's try to get this figurd out.

[chris m]

Jay

 

I had Win98 until about a week ago so I didn't have to deal with a lot of this administrator BS; now I don't have permissions to do jack on my machine.

 

I don't know about the processor; I was told that it was a P4 600 but I probably misunderstood or the guy telling me mis-spoke. As (I'm sure) you guys can tell, I don't know much about what's under the hood of my PC; don't really care, either, to be honest with you. I'll ask to get whatever info might be helpful.

 

Thanks guys

 

C

 

[ 02-26-2003, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[Guest]

Chris,

Like I said, Had a similar problem. Leave the screen saver off for a couple days and see what happens.

NVIDIA has special drivers for Acad. Not sure if all cards can use them. Check with their tech support.

Check with Mastercam support. I am positive they have had this come up before. They can probably walk you through a fix. They are pretty sharp folks.

 

[ 02-24-2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Tom Smith ]

[chris m]

Thanks Tom

 

I have the screen saver disabled now and will try MC to see what happens. I'll also tell the IT guy about the Acad drivers.

 

I'll keep you posted

 

C

 

[ 02-26-2003, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[CNCme]

Chris,

 

Screen savers are a big no-no...where I

used to work (ha-ha) monitors stayed on for

years (5 aprox. ) and never had any problems

... The " then new monitors " dont burn out

or burn in like the old vga's did...If any

thing when not in use...turn it off .

Thats whaT I do

 

HTH

 

Tony G

[cadcam]

I have found no trouble have my screen savers on for the looks and for setting a password when I leave my computer at a customers to go to lunch.

[Brendan O' Regan]

MasterCam used to alway lock up on me also so i turned off screen saver.

I also turned off the following items in power management -

Turn off system standby.

Turn off monitor.

Turn off hard disk.

 

After turning off all these i had no problems any more and MasterCam runs fine.

 

Brendan.

 

[ 02-25-2003, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Brendan O' Regan ]

[chris m]

First of all, thanks for the help guys

 

Second, it still doesn't work

 

Here's where we are:

 

1) I have the Power settings on "Always On" with all options (monitor, hard disk, etc) set to turn off "never".

 

2) I have the screen saver set to "none"

 

3) I have the color set to 16-bit

 

4) Screen resolution is 1280 x 1024

 

The machine still locks within 2 minutes if any application runs while MC is minimized or in the background.

 

I also see "ghost" windows on top of the Mastercam screen. For example, if I have a small window open that is layed over the MC screen and I drag the window to a new location with the mouse, the "old" image is still there. I don't know if these problems are related or what?

 

 

One thing I did notice when I was checking my settings was that the Hardware Acceleration is set to "Full." I've seen some discussion of turning this down when other forum members have had video problems; could this help my issue? If so, how do i change it? I appear to be locked out of this; does the "administrator" need to do it?

 

 

Sorry about the novel guys, just trying to fix this

 

C

 

[ 03-03-2003, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[Fig sign]

quote:

---

I am running a rebuilt Dell Dimension XPS T600 with a P4 600MHz processor, 384 RAM, NVidia GeForce 4 Ti4600, Win2000, V9SP1.

 

 

---

P4 600MHz ?

Never heard .

May be P3 ? Or Celeron?

And AGP2 only ?

 

This may cause trouble whis driver thinking you have AGP4 interface minimum?

May be you must make an update for your motherboard.

And when you looking at the device manager ,

are all O.K?

[Guest]

Chris,

I would leave the screen saver off until you figure what is going on. That way you will not have another variable in the mix.

 

Setting your hardware acceleration to a lower setting, usually 1 up from the lowest, can sometimes help Mastercam. However, it will almost certainly cause other applications to have problems.

 

If you have your MC total mem allocations set to a third or less of your total RAM it will be a safe starting point.

 

It still sounds like a memory problem. Did you ever find out what your total usage is when all of these applications are running. You might also have something running in the background that is eating memory. Norton Systemworks, for an example, can be a hog depending on the settings.

 

It can get really frustrating when these things happen. If you get like me, sit back and relax a little. Try and work through and eliminate posibilities and see what works and what does not. Check what applications activate when your PC starts up.

 

Give your MC dealer a call. They have an interest in this. Then work with MC tech suport. You will have more information to answer the questions they will have

[jadaro]

Wishing you the best of luck by the way:

 

Re-install both Mastercam and the lastest version of DirectX

 

Althought I don't have mastercam right here in front of me, if it has some sort of temporary file folder for whatever calculations, change it to somewhere else, it may have become currupted. (Who knows)

[Craig Madsen from CM3D]

You may want to change the priority for Mastercam (or for another program).

 

As an experiment, right-click on the Mastercam shortcut, select properties and change the Target to read:

 

cmd /c start /belownormal c:mcam9mill9.exe

 

This will change the startup priority from 8 to 6. In tests I've done there will be a slight performance hit to Mastercam (almost negligible) but the systems response running other CPU intensive programs has been improved.

 

Craig Madsen

[email protected]

[chris m]

Just bumping this back up to thank you guys for the input.

 

When everything works I'll let you know what fixed it.

 

C

[Mark H]

As others have suggested in this (and the other thread) it could be the RAM. If possible I would swap out the RAM with another computer and see what happens.

[Paul Decelles]

This almost certainly sounds like a memory issue to me. Check you allocations and make sure they haven't been set to an absurd level. Master cam grabs whatever you set and keeps it for it's own greedy use so if you have other applications running (and the screen saver is a good one to mention, especially the really cool 3d XP one) you will very quickly run out of memory. The type of memory installed may also be at issue if the new motherboard is not actually meant to run with it (using 133 Mhz when the board only supports 100 Mhz for example). But I'm guessing it is an allocation issue.

[chris m]

Just bringing this back up to say thanks for the help. We tried everything you guys suggested and more, to no avail. As a result we pitched the box that I had and replaced it with another rebuild job; this one is a Dell Dimension 4100 with a P3 something MHz and an NVidia Riva TNT2 card. This machine ain't the greatest but it does seem to run MC OK.

 

Thanks guys for all the input

 

C