Long load times in SW2006

Hey

we have extreme long load times on even "smallish" assemblies
(15-20mb, 1000 parts).

Even when I use a 1gb network I still use 5 min to open these
assemblies.

If I copy all of it onto a local drive the loadtime is the same, but
if I unplug my network cable while loading the the local one, my
loadtime is reduced to 45 sec.

Also it seems overtime that the computer loads slower from the
network, recieved my new computer 1,5 month ago, and there I had
loadtimes between 2 and 3 min of teh same assembly.


Comp Spec:
HP xw4400 Workstation
2,4 GHz Duo
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500
1 Gbit Net

We are 20-25 users of SW on the network.


I have a suspision that SW is looking on different network drives or
something similar, maybe writing to a log file. But I havent been able
to find the "bottle neck".

Also if I meet at work early in the morning with only a few users on
the network I can load the same assembly in ~3 min.


We have slighty older machines
P4 - 3,5 GHz
4 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 1400
1 Gbit net

that uses 8-10 min loading the same drawing. They can load the same
eraly in the morning with a few users on in 3 min also.

Our network people say that they cant monitor anything that should
slow this down. Also I can copy files from the same drive with
20-40Mbit, meaning transfering the same amount of data from the same
source within 5-10 secs.


Hope you can give me som pointers on this as it is a major problem.

Thanks in advance.

 

Start by trying Tops suggestions in the thread labled "Tip of the
day....."

 

I found that having incorrect File Locations (under System Options)
caused slow loads, also if you have multiple locations selected, it
seems to pull from the bottom of the list first. My VAR also said to
uncheck "Search file locations for external referencs", seemed to help.

2¢
WC

 

Sounds like your VAR doesn't understand the implications of that
switch.

What are you File References set to? There is a long explanation of
this in help. Get a cup of coffee and a quiet place and study it.

 

Ronni:

1. With 20-25 people you should be using a PDM so that you can work
locally and control your files. We (10 users) tried working off the
network for a while, but found that no matter how you tweak the
settings opening over the network always causes a performance hit. At
the time we were working with similar sized assemblies with a 1Gbit
network. We also found that working locally significantly improved
stability and reduced random file/model errors.

2. The difference between load times with the network cable plugged/
unplugged can be explained by your SWKS system settings. If you set
your system options to "Search file locations for external references"
and then in file locations add your local directory to the "Referenced
Documents" list, Solidworks will look for files on the local drive
before it checks the network drive. If you turn this off or do not
have a local drive listed, Solidworks will look at the internal file
references which will probably be the network drive.

 

Not sure what you mean, the File References point where they should,
unchecking that option seemed to make no difference, it always finds the
files in assemblies, etc which are scattered throughout the Eng
directory...

Reading the Help file makes it sound like it won't know where to look,
or even bother to look... but it always loads... I could be ignorant though.

 

Every assembly has an internal list (references) of all the files it
contains and where they are located. By default when you open an
assembly it will use this internal list to locate and open any files
it contains. If you turn on the search file locations, and specify a
referenced documents location, you can override the internal list.
For example when we worked off of the network we had the search file
locations turned off and all the files opened from the network since
that is where all our files were located and all the internal
references pointed to the network. When we switched to working
locally, we turned on search file locations and specified a folder in
our local drive as the referenced documents location. Now whenever an
assembly is opened, it looks first in the local folder for the file
even though the internal list of references may still be pointing to
the network.

 

The paths given in Tools/Options/File Locations/References take
precedence over paths stored in the assembly. For example, if you
create a file called P1.sldprt in c:\somedirectory\P1.sldprt and both
the check external reference option is checked and Tools/Options/File
Locations/References is set to d:\someotherdirectory\ and there is a
file called P1.sldprt there, any SW file that is opened that
references P1.sldprt will find it in c:\somedirectory\ even if the
file was saved to d:\someotherdirectory\ while the assembly was
open.

If you have two identical directory structures, one on C:\ and another
on D:\ you can control which files an assembly will reference by
changing the order of the entries in Tools/Options/File Locations/
References . The first path in the list is searched first. For example
the following directory structures exist:

C:\vault\path1
D:\vault\path1

Tools/Options/File Locations/References is set to

C:\
D:\

If an assembly is created at D:\vault\path1 and all the parts are
located there SW will still search C:\ on opening the assembly in D:
\vault\path1. In fact it will search the whole tree on C:\ before
beginning to look in D:\ for the references. This of course can slow
things down because SW won't look in the last place the files were
saved to till the very end of the search.

You can use a utility like Filemon to watch SW search for files. This
may give you some clue as to your problems.

 

Have tried loading your assemblies light weight? This should reduce
your load times. Also, what are your settings for large assemblies?
The default is 500 but if it has been changed so it is a number larger
than that you may want to try the default setting again.

 

Hey again, thx for answers.

I have tried all the things you have been suggesting besides using PDM
to make it a local load.

I also tried the tip of the day with turning off the QoS.

Loading in lightweight should not be nessesary on such a small
assembly, we do use the lightweight on bigger assemblies in order to
load them at all (/3gb switch).
I am not looking at a solution just to have the assembly on the
screen, I need to be able to work on it. Loading in lightweight is
jjust postponing my wait-time.

About the reference patchs, it dosnt seem to have any effect if I have
the "check external reference" option on or not, or if I set any of
the network drives/folders in the list.

Our seller-support said it might have something to do with "mapped
drives" - but I tried disconnecting them all and loading it from the
source, which also showed no improvement.

 

I think a good set of IT tools with suitable network & packet tests
used to monitor exactly what is happening should be able to track down
what it happening which cause this.

I am not involved with networked computers as an "IT guy", but I do
listen to what some of these guys talk about, and they can get really
detailed on what they track and measure, particularly in today's world
of viruses, trojans, worms, and stealth software trying to
occasionally send out information.

Bo

 

The next question is what virus checker is on the server and your
workstation and how is it set up?

 

According to our "IT guy" the virus scan is set not to scan
the .sldZZZ files on either the individual computer nor the server.

We are using McAfee.

 

sld* files are not the only ones you don't want to scan.

Don't scan the files SW created in your Local Settings folder. Don't
scan the journal file. Don't scan a bunch of other files SW frequently
refers to.

And BTW, in case nobody mentioned it, make sure your journal is being
saved locally.

 

The journal is saved locally.

And the virus-scanner is not excluding special file-types from its
scans, its the traffic from the network-drive (where our SW files are)
to the computer that is excluded from the scan.

 

Besides the *.sld* exclusion you will also need to exclude the .dll
files from the SW install directory as well as the sld*.exe. Then
there are files like swxJRNL.swj file, *.*dot, *.*drt, *.mdb (in the
SW install path), *.*lfp, *.ske, *.*tbt and a whole bunch of others.

I'll have to ask if you have used filemon to see which files SW is
using and whether your virus checker is looking at them? I'll also
have to ask whether you have checked the network speed outside of SW
to see what you are getting.

This macro can be run from SW or Excel and will write a big file to a
network drive. Watch the speed on your task manager's network
monitor.
Open your macro editor, past the code below in and hit run after
setting a path to a network drive. The macro just writes strings of
random numbers to a text file. If you don't get at least 25%
utilization you may have a problem with the network.

' Be sure to check (x) MicroSoft Scripting Runtime in TOOLS/REFERENCES
in your macro editor before running.

Sub main()

Dim fso As Object
Dim mainfolder As Object
Dim objFile As Object

strPath = "m:\yournetworkpathhere"

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

If Not fso.FolderExists(strPath) Then

MsgBox "Creating " & strPath
fso.CreateFolder (strPath)

End If

strFile = strPath & "\" & Format(1000 * Rnd(), "0####.###.txt")

fso.CreateTextFile (strFile)

For i = 0 To 1000 'After each run add a zero to increase length of
test

strLine = strLine & 1 / (Rnd(i) * Rnd(i + 1))
If (i / 100 = 1) Then strLine = strLine & Chr(10) & Chr(13)
Set objFile = fspenTextFile(strFile, 2, False, 0)
Debug.Print Len(strLine)
objFile.Write (strLine)
objFile.Close
Next



End Sub

 

After trying the network from my machine I got the following results.

Using the macro I use 70% of the network - the "transfer" was very
steady
I tried copying some files from the same area on the network onto my
local drive, where I got an unsteady transfer, useually around 80-85%
peaking at 90%.
When opening and assembly from SW its an unsteady transfer that goes
from 5-15%, and peaks once or twice at 20%

 

That is about what I get on a 1000baseT network for either SW or the
macro. What is your network speed again?

 

Just discovered they changed the port on the switch, so I only tried
it on 100 MBit

Trying it again now on 1 GBit, and the macro runs on ~25% will post
the speeds of the 2 other asap

 

Tried it with a 1GBit now.

Macro: 25% - Peak 30% (steady)
Copying files: 30% - Peak 42% (unsteady)
Opening files in SW: 1-2% - Peak 2,5% (unsteady)