C3D2010 - slow switching between layouts & viewports

[Sinc]

We've been having recurring problems with one of our machines taking a long time to switch between layouts, and to switch in and out of viewports.  The cursor seems to randomly disappear for maybe 15 or 30 seconds at a time, usually when performing one of those tasks, although it also seemed to do it various other times.

My coworker had been complaining about this problem, but I had no idea how bad it was until I tried using his machine for a while.  Once every few minutes, the cursor would disappear for a while, and I'd have to wait for it to decide to come back.  Tricks like hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL to start Task Manager sometimes seemed to bring it back faster, sometimes not.  It would have driven me batty within days.

I tried a lot of attempts at solving the problem, even going so far as to buy a new Quadro graphics card.  No luck.  Nothing had any effect.

Finally, I decided to try upgrading the MOBO BIOS.  It's an EVGA X58 3x SLI board.  So I downloaded the latest BIOS and flashed it to the MOBO, and...   IT SOLVED THE PROBLEM!  My coworker has been using the computer for a couple of days now, and the problem hasn't cropped up even once since the BIOS upgrade.

Just thought I'd mention it for anyone else out there who's having lots of trouble with hanging and disappearing cursors in C3D.

[hgohel]

Thanks for posting, and glad you were able to find a solution for your co-worker's problem.  Out of curiosity, what did the readme for the BIOS upgrade say?  Is there anything to indicate it would affect application-level issues?  Typically BIOS upgrades help with newer CPU support, and hardware-level issues and that's what makes me curious.

[grunyon11]

I was having similar issues after installing Civil 3D 2012 (Slow response from Civil 3D).  I upgraded the BIOS on my computer as well, and it seems to have solved the problem.  Thanks for the info!

[hgohel]

Hi grunyon11,

Is your motherboard the same as Sinc's?  And I have the same question for you, i.e. if there was anything in the BIOS readme about the changes in the updated version that would affect applications.

[Sinc]

Here's the release notes:

http://www.evga.com/Support/Drivers/default.asp?switch=2

I actually upgraded to the Release 77 drivers.  It looks like the Release 81 drivers came out the day after I downloaded R77.  I'm not sure which version of the BIOS I started with, but I know it was one of the early ones in that list.  That MOBO never had its BIOS upgraded, so the one on it was the one that it shipped with, some ~1.5 years ago.

[Sinc]

Looks like EVGA has a funky website, and that URL doesn't work.  It appears the only way to get to the driver list is to go to EVGA's website yourself, and look for the BIOS update for the X58 3x SLI.

[hgohel]

I guess with so much integrated into the motherboard these days, BIOS updates are looking more like service packs.  For example the EGVA BIOS upgrade includes updates to the chipset, RAID, ethernet, etc.  So I can see how this may affect application performance if there was a serious bug in the earlier releases.  Typically with manufacturers like HP, DELL, etc. you'd see device driver updates separately from BIOS updates.  Anyway this might help others, so thanks for posting.

[grunyon11]

Himanshu,

The reason I didn't reply yesterday is because I asked our IT guy your question regarding mother boards, and he didn't know exactly how to respond (he mentioned that everything is integrated because it's a dell).  I'm currently running a Dell Precision T3500 Intel Xeon CPU W3520 @ 2.67 GHZ (Dual processor) with 12 GB of Ram.  I updated my video card driver first (NVIDIA Quadro NVS 420), but it didn't make a difference in the performance of Civil 3D 2012.  So I decided to try updating the BIOS, and that seemed to help the performance.  We haven't installed the software yet on a Windows 7 machine (I'm running Windows XP64), so I'll post another reply if that machine has the same issue.

[hgohel]

Hi grunyon11,

Quadro NVS 420 is a good card, but in the "business" line of NVIDIA products, i.e. it is optimized for 2D display (video etc).  My guess is that even when you upgraded your driver, AutoCAD performance tuner did not enable hardware acceleration and therefore you did not see any improvement.  Glad you saw benefit after upgrading the BIOS though.