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manamana
Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:19 pm Post subject: I'm having lots, and lots, of problems |
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Hi all.
I'm an architect who switched to a new office that uses powercadd about 5 months ago, and coming from years of being an autocad guru, I've had some trouble adjusting. This hasn't been helped by the myriad of issues I've had and continue to have - some I think are 10.5 issues, some are PC issues, and some I have no idea. So I'm going to post a laundry list, and if anyone can offer insight or suggestions, it would be much appreciated. I'm running 7.06 on 10.5.3.
Random log offs: seems to only happen in powercadd - I'll be working, and suddenly, blue screen, then login screen, with any work since the last save lost. This happens anywhere from two to ten times a week. seems to have gotten worse going from 10.5.2 to 10.5.3
Crashes: with some files, certain tools almost always cause PC to crash. Move points is the biggest offender, but there are others. There was one day, where I was using move points a great deal, and PC crashed 2 out of every 3 times I used the move points tool. I must have hit "repair settings and relaunch" 60 times in the course of a day.
Really, these would be minor inconveniences if there were properly functioning autosaves (in the background, not that silly reminder pop up). But PC, and mac software in general, seems to take a "we don't crash so we don't have to worry about backing up" attitude that's...well...frustrating. Even with the reminder pop up set to every 10 minutes, I still wind up losing a great deal of work, not to mention the time wasted clicking save and then waiting for it to save. which brings me to...
slowness: there a perceptible delay from when I hit a shortcut key (or button with the mouse) to when that action happens. This is minor (it's less than a second) but it's annoying to feel like I'm moving faster than my computer is. I think this may also contribute to my shortcut related problems.
Keyboard drop outs: sometimes, for a period of 5-10 seconds, some keys don't work on my keyboard. It seems to be the letter and number keys that stop functioning. This happens in both powercadd and other programs, but only if powercadd is open as well. I've tried 3 different keyboards, happens with all of them.
Shortcuts: I'm used to working where my right hand stays on the mouse and my left hand handles shortcut keys and input. I don't like to move the mouse back and forth to the side of the screen alot, so I've really struggled to come up with a workable set of shortcuts for the tools I use a great deal. the trouble is, most of the ones I've set don't work or have to be hit 3-4 times to activate them, or the default shortcut doesn't stop working after I change it. I also can't seem to come up with a good way to deal with tool options.... I'd love for "t" to give me the trim tool, and "shift-t" to give me trim tool options... But I haven't found a way to set that and have it work.
Some drop down menu functions don't work: make group is one. Doesn't work from the menu. doesn't work for the shortcut I have set up for it (g). it does work for "cmd-g"
Help? Am I doing something seriously wrong? Nobody else seems to be having these issues in the office, but they're all on 10.4.
Apologies for the length. Today was a frustrating day. |
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CJH
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 329
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Many of these sound like general computer and OS issues. So first, can you post what computer you have, processor speed and how much RAM-also if you are using an Apple wireless keyboard. |
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jasonlocher
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 634
Location: Austin, Texas
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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all i can say is abandon any thoughts of xrefs (focus on sheets), viewports (non existant), or instantaneous drawing response (heard its faster on v .
as for commands, investigate the blossom pallete and load that sucker up to keep your hand on the mouse. I cluster all of my snaps around my lefts hand on the keyboard, similar to gaming layouts, and have an 8 button mouse programmed to use my most used commands like delete, mirror, wt extend.
I started performing autocad excorcisms about 9 years ago, it isn't pretty but eventually the vomiting, hovering, and head spinning ceases  |
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raleighross
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 376
Location: Raleigh, NC
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: Re: I'm having lots, and lots, of problems |
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| manamana wrote: | So I'm going to post a laundry list, and if anyone can offer insight or suggestions, it would be much appreciated. I'm running 7.06 on 10.5.3.
Random log offs: seems to only happen in powercadd - I'll be working, and suddenly, blue screen, then login screen, with any work since the last save lost. This happens anywhere from two to ten times a week. seems to have gotten worse going from 10.5.2 to 10.5.3
Help? Am I doing something seriously wrong? Nobody else seems to be having these issues in the office, but they're all on 10.4.
Apologies for the length. Today was a frustrating day. |
How did your machine "get" 10.5.x. Was it an upgrade of another machine? If so there may be some add ins and such that are giving you lots of grief. 10.5.x was a big change under the hood for some things. Not all but some. I'd look at any non Apple things attached or that you have software installed for. Like that 5 year old ink jet that you don't use and maybe the out of date driver has a big conflict. Old mice drivers. Etc...
And even if you started with a clean system, installing a driver off a 3 year old CD can be just as bad.
And as others said what model Mac, CPU, and memory?
David |
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manamana
Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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it's a mac pro 2.66 quad (2x woodcrest) w/3gb ram. from what I'm told, it was bought new this past December 07...I believe it was originally loaded with 10.5.0 or 10.5.1. I loaded both 10.5.2 and 10.5.3 updates myself.
I've tried several models of keyboards, all wired. currently it's one of the slick new (wired) aluminum ones. Mouse is a logitech MX revolution w/ latest drivers.
We do have a couple older printers in the office, but I've checked for updated drivers on both and there's nothing new.
I'm aware of the lack of reference and sheet capabilities...that's annoying, but I can live with it. I'll look into the blossom palette (it might function as a work around) but really I would think that if I set a keyboard shortcut in powercadd, it should work as long as it doesn't conflict with any OS level shortcuts. Additional info on shortcut problems: when I hit a combination of keys to activate something and it doesn't work, it's not that nothing happens - the cursor changes temporarily, but the proper tool doesn't activate. It registers that keys were pressed, but it doesn't "stick" |
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jasonlocher
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 634
Location: Austin, Texas
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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when you set up custom key commands, save the drawing and quit powercadd. When you relaunch it the changes will stick.
Also, go to the Applications/Utilities folder and launch disk utility, run "repair permissions" on your hard drive. I always run that after an OS update or after deleting large chunks of data. |
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CJH
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 329
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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A couple suggestions:
Run 'Activity Monitor' (In Utilities) to see if there is a program consuming large amounts of RAM or CPU usage. Sometimes there can be something set to start up with the computer which uses all it's resources.
Go to System Preferences/Keyboard and Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts and make sure that at the bottom of the menu you have 'text boxes and lists only' selected. Under Keyboard, check the 'use all f1...keys as standard function keys'.
Completely uninstall the Logitech mouse software and use either USB Overdrive or SteerMouse. With these you can set buttons in specific applications to key commands in Powercadd.
PC6 or PC7 on any Intel machine is slow-I often felt the machine was behind me. Upgrade to PC8 for a huge speed-up.
With a properly running machine, you should have practically no crashes. I go months with leaving PC running, sleep the computer when not in use and don't have crashes.
Let us know how it goes. You will find lots of people on this forum want you to enjoy using PC. |
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How Goes It
Joined: 02 May 2005
Posts: 354
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| jasonlocher wrote: | | Also, go to the Applications/Utilities folder and launch disk utility, run "repair permissions" on your hard drive. I always run that after an OS update or after deleting large chunks of data. |
Great advice.
Also, is there such a thing as zapping pram on the Intel machines? |
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Matt
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 450
Location: Sterling, Virginia
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: |
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if your problems persist, you should try removing your defaults and commands files from their folder and letting PowerCADD create fresh ones. If this eliminates the crashing, you'll have to re-create your defaults and command keys. If the problem stays, I'd recommend doing a clean install of PowerCADD
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paulprd
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 53
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Hi,
Try making a new user and working from that. Sounds to me like your system is all screwed up. It happens less with OSX but it happens. If all else fails I would start a fresh and perform an archive install of the system. At least you know its clean. Used to be called clean install on OS9 for obvious reasons. Part of the process of elimination.
There is a little app http://www.atomicbird.com/macaroni
This performs maintenance on the system that helps keep it clean. The OS will eventually do this if you leave it running overnight constantly. But you never know if its done it!
Cheers
Paul |
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Jeffrey Jakucyk
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
Posts: 103
Location: Cincinnati, OH
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:03 am Post subject: |
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CJH is right that the slowness is probably "just how it is." I upgraded from a dual 2.0 ghz G5 to a quad 2.8 ghz Mac Pro, and PowerCADD 6 runs about the same on the new machine as on the old one. Unfortunately, PowerCADD 7 is even slower than 6. Since you're running processor-intensive PowerPC programs through emulation on Intel hardware, speed isn't going to be great. That being said, the fact that it's usable at all under such circumstances is pretty remarkable.
I've seen the random logout once, and apparently it's happened to a few other people at our office too, another one running PC6 on an Intel iMac with OS X 10.5, but also to someone running it on a G5 iMac with OS X 10.3. Go figure. Other people have had this problem with PPC programs running in emulation with Rosetta, especially FileMaker.
There seems to be a memory leak that causes the windowserver process to crash, which subsequently takes down the loginwindow process and logs you out instantly (you can reproduce the effect by quitting either loginwindow or windowserver from Activity Monitor). It may be a problem endemic to PowerCADD, Apple's Carbon libraries, or a combination of both, but it seems that adding Intel hardware to the equation makes the problem more prevalent. Some suggest trashing the com.apple.windowserver.plist and com.apple.loginwindow.plist files located in /Library/Preferences (this is the Library folder at the top level of your hard drive, not the one in your User folder). I haven't investigated that any further though. |
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jasonlocher
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 634
Location: Austin, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:18 am Post subject: |
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| If you are coming from Autocad to PowerCADD, it operates extremely slow in comparison and takes time to "get over". |
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Kent
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 57
Location: Birmingham, AL
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| Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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Are you working on files on a server. If you are I recommend moving the files to computer and then backing them up to the server at the end of he day.
One thing I have found is that if you just put the computer to sleep every night, you will see a little speed increase after a restart and more stability (some may disagree with this, but it has been my experience)
We are currently using PCAD 7 on G5 imacs with good results. I have a intel imac at home and occasionally run PCAD on it and have had good results and about the same speed as on the G5.
Good luck |
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raleighross
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 376
Location: Raleigh, NC
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| Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:44 am Post subject: |
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| Kent wrote: | | Are you working on files on a server. If you are I recommend moving the files to computer and then backing them up to the server at the end of he day. |
If the others in his office are not having an issue I'd be loath to tell him to change the work flow.
And if this an issue anywhere, I'd suggest fixing the network/server ASAP.
I work with small to medium sized offices that work almost entirely off the server. Opening and saving multi-meg files all day long. But we don't use the left over beige G3 for our servers.
David |
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Matt
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 450
Location: Sterling, Virginia
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: |
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manamana --
has any of these suggestions been helpful? did you determine the source of the difficulty?
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I love PowerCADD |
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