TIP OF THE DAY: Possible crash cause

You have a user who complains about random crashes alot and there is no
explanation as to a cause. Try checking the system time on the network
server and the user's computer. If there is a big difference (more than
40seconds) you may have found your problem.

Checking time difference between two XP systems or an XP system and
Linux with an NTP server running:

w32tm /stripchart /computer:target /samples:n/dataonly

For target substitute the IP address of the computer on the network you
want to check differences with.

For n put in 3 or 5.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/35731215-0ec8-454d-89ba-0f29f2469e361033.mspx

 

Another great tip!

Thanks,
Devon

 

How does the time difference effect my computer? My computer doesn't spend
much time talking to any of the servers, especially when I am cranking hard
on SW. I'm willing to try anything, but have a hard time wrapping my mind
around this one. Does this only apply when running floating licenses?

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

What time zone are you in?
Jb should have an answer, right? If he knew the Zone ....
they have to do with the Zen of the joystick, right?

 

One more thing. If you are runnig W2k or NT you can set the time as
follows from a command prompt. First issue at by itself to make sure a
time sync is not already running.

at 8:00 /everyM,T,W,Th,F,S,Su) "net time \\timeserver /set /yes"
at

where timeserver is the IP or fully qualified domain name of the time
server. This will set the time every day at 8:00 am. The second at
makes sure the at command uses the updated time.

More documentation is available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows200...sp?url=/windows2000/en/server/help/ntcmds.htm

 

The scenario of a routine "check" of times between devices causing a
surprise crash leads to a next logical question.

What other automatic system checks or application's "calling home" or
similar things will cause SolidWorks to crash or hang (arguably almost
as bad)?

I put up with Windows, but only for SolidWorks use, and do not run on a
network.

But all this BS over Windows "Issues" is exactly why I use my Mac for
all other stuff including Internet work.

As a side note: Some programmer has already done a work around to put
a BIOS on EFI on a MacTel machine to allow Windows XP to reside on a
new Macintosh. So far it only installs on a FAT partition, but the day
is coming soon when I can get rid of my non-Apple hardware.

Bo

 

File locking might be the other network related issue that could cause
SW to have problems. I haven't really gotten into that one though.

Time synchronization is not really a Windows issue. It is a network
issue. And Windows doesn't have a problem keeping time any more than
the underlying hardware does. It is user's who don't bother setting
their clocks (PCs) correctly that cause the problem. On installations
where IT people get involved the time issue is usually taken care of by
those folks, but a lot of SW installations are growing into networked
SW installation run by CAD folks. That is the usefullness of this
thread. An IT person would probably find it very basic.

 

On a Tangent http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm has an excellent network
problem solver.

I used to lug my machine around to various networks and for a long time I
could no longer see other computers on the network. I could ping their IP's
but not see them in explorer this site helped me solve this problem, all the
other sites I searched were not anyway near as helpful as this one. FYI my
main problem was that the NetBIOS node type was incorrectly set, possibly by
connecting to a "certain type" of DHCP or WIN server.

John Layne
www.solidengineering.co.nz

 

Oops, it is:

net time /setsntp:\\servername /set /yes

I forgot the syntax of one parameter.