SW2003 SP4, XP Pro and Stability (lack of)

Okay Boys and Girls

I know most of you are probably cavorting happily (?) in the land of 2004,
but I have a question regarding XP Pro hotfixes, and their effect on SWX
stability (completely hosed) specifically 2003, but also 2004 (oh look...as
I write this a rendering in 2004 has just given me an application / memory
access error...grr).

I'm running:
2003 SP4 (2004 SP0 dual install)
Win XP Pro (all the latest security fixes)
Athlon XP2600+
1024MB
Leadtek K17NCR18GM mobo
3DLabs VP560 ( drv 3.1.535.0)
80GB HDD blah blah

The system was running fine (with the odd glitch in SWX and Q3A) until
Thursday evening, when I decided that it would be a good idea to get the
latest windows hotfixes (Windows Update).

After doing the major security fixes I started to experience complete
machine hangs (i.e. mouse and keyboard locked, no means of warm reboot, so
rip the cable out of the back), typically when opening a new sketch, or
editing an existing one.

Today, I thought that it would be an even better idea to get the remaining
fixes (DX9 and something else that I can't remember) and dutifully sat there
for 45mins doing that (dial up modem). I'm now suffering from render
crashes and lockups in Solidworks and also when surfing...

Have any of you experienced anything like this, and if so what have you done
about it (other than throwing a tantrum after the 20th crash)?

Chris.

 

This type of thing used to be very common when we ran on IBM AIX Unix boxes
running applications like Patran. We learned to not upgrade the OS with
every hotfix that came along until experience and testing showed a stable
combination of application software and OS. Perhaps you should firewall off
your SW box so security is not an issue and use another machine to access
the internet.

I also thought XP has a way to rollback from fixes and upgrades? Does that
not work for security hotfixes.?

 

i had that once with Win2000 and I used ControlPanel -> Add/Remove Software
to remove the last couple of hot fixes. It pretty much did the trick.
At some later time, I downloaded all the MS updates and this time I didn't
have the problem.
good luck!
Bill

 

hmmm. I've got all the latest windows updates, and I'm doing fine on both
versions. You said you were rendering? PW2? That might be the problem.
Also, As great as those Wildcat cards are supposed to be, I hear a lot of
people having problems with them with SW. The 560 is green on the SW video
card page, but only for driver 3.01.0450. If you run out of stuff to try,
you might try to install the older driver. Another thing to check is to
see if you got over-zealous with your virtual memory. Don't set your VM to
2 or 3 GB just because you think more is better. Windows can only handle
so much memory, if you set it too high, it can actually cause crashes.

good luck.

matt.

 

Thanks Guys.

I'll do the simplest thing and reload the 450 driver (hellooo Alias PLE
issues...). If that doesn't work, I'll start removing hotfixes...

Chris

 

Actually, the 450 driver didn't change anything, but all improved when my
partner swiped my Intellimouse Explorer for her laptop and I was left
slumming it withe the Wacom pad...

I've upgraded to the latest Intellipoint software and stability is back.

But, and a headsup for thoise of you who have one and use the two side
buttons for view manipulation, you can no longer assign <ctrl> and <shift>
to the buttons. Nor can you slect certain programs to ignore autoscroll...

Aaaaarrrggh

 

I'm using the latest Intellipoint 4.x drivers on Win XP Pro and I can change
the side buttons to ctrl, shift, alt or whatever and I still have the
ability to add programs to ignore under "Wheel> Wheel Troubleshooter>
Advanced". I would double check your installation.

Dave H

 

Latest driver is... (drum roll)

5.0.174.0

and it sucks...

 

Yup..... upgraded to 5.0 and immediatly un-installed and went back to 4.0.
I hope you have a 4.0 version to install.

Dave H

 

Unfortunately, that results in a 50/50 reboot gamble when editing sketches,
whereas I am down to 1 crash every 4-5 renderings at the moment..

(mutter mutter mutter)