Expert: Bob - 7/24/2008

Question
Hi Bob,  I'm using acad2004 presently and the problem I keep having is that when I get multiple tabs in a drawing, say over 5 or 6, and I'm switching between tabs doing dimensions & text etc, everything gets gradually slower until eventually it will want to regen every time I pan or zoom or switch tabs or jump back to model space. Inevitably, it crashes and I get messages like"Fatal error, Autocad cannot continue" or "Out of memory". Sometimes it allows me to try to save changes, sometimes not. I've gotten good at resurrecting the file from the .sav file or .bak file but I always loose something. I've got 1gb of ram on the PC and I believe a NVIDIA GeForce MX 4000 video card (I'm not sure of the memory on this). The PC is a Sony Vaio,about 3 yrs old and generally pretty fast.I am working on larger and larger projects and sometime like to have multiple drawings open and this problem really is slowing me down. I have purchased Archdesktop 2007 but I haven't installed it yet (sometimes the evil you know....). What do you think the solution might be?
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you can help.

DBL

Answer
Hi--

You leave out the size of the drawings (skyscrapers or widgits?)-- I can give some general info.  I am going to crapshoot that your story sounds like a dirty computer with memory drain,  not an Acad problem. --everything gets gradually slower--I guess you are on XP.

On a 3 yr old computer you also use for the Internet --- you should be cleaning out temp files and internet clutter, and defragging every week, at least. You should be shutting down AutoCAD at lunch and restarting the machine. You probably should have re-installed Windows
(upgrade install does not remove your other stuff).

Possibly: assorted software running in the background. some deterioration of the system, ??????

I would clean it up thoroughly -- and add another gig of ram (cheap now).

ADT is great -- (even though you waited 2 yrs) --- but get the Paul Aubin book and take classes. But DONT even think of installing a huge program like that until you fix or replace the computer.


BOB