Ribbons go blank!

[ned1986zha]

Greetings,

I've bought a new Acer laptop; installed Inventor 2011 and unfortunatelly I'm encountering really annoying problems with Ribbon UI to an extent that I had to roll back to the old style UI.

Ribbon toolbars go dark when you hide/unhide them. Highlighted menu items stay highlighted together and I'm unable to distinguish the currently highlighted menu item.

I've even switched display to performance and compatibilty modes along with software renderer enabled and still no difference.

in case you suspect my Graphics, this laptop features two GPUs, Intel Graphics HD and nVidia 540M that transparently switch to each other (Optimus technology).

the OS is Win7 x86 and windows aero is enabled.

if you demand any more of specs let me know pls.

[Mark_Wigan]

can't say i have heard of that before. just make sure you have the inventor service pack installed if you haven't already.

apart from that all i can say is that my machine was having random blackouts on a new high performance laptop a while back and had to have my video card replaced under wty. the issue was not identical to yours but maybe you could run some tests. if it isn't software it would be worth trying a hardware swap.

 http://www.sisoftware.net/  ie type of burn in - benchmarking software i have used from time to time to see if i can get it to crash or blackout when the video card has to do any work... good for a new computer to find out if there are any weaknesses.

also i have found over the years that inventor sometimes can show random problems if you have a corrupt user profile. a way to check (sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't) is to try creating a new user account (admin) and logging on as the new user and see if you get the same thing to happen. if so i would reformat and try a fresh install.

[mcgyvr]

Never heard of this optimus technology but I'd bet that if you disabled your onboard graphics and just relied upon the better card that this problem might go away. 

[sbauman67]

Ok guys I have a little issue. Just built a new rig, see spec below:

And installed Inventor 2012 on a vanallia install. Iinstalled the OS, Win 7 64bit, updated windows, instaled motherborad and video drviers, then installed inventor 2012, installed sp1 for inventor 2012 64bit.

The issue is the toolbar ribbon is missing on the graphics? See below

 

Any ideas? Thanks

Steve

[sbauman67]

Ok guys I have a little issue. Just built a new rig, see spec below:

And installed Inventor 2012 on a vanallia install. Iinstalled the OS, Win 7 64bit, updated windows, instaled motherborad and video drviers, then installed inventor 2012, installed sp1 for inventor 2012 64bit.

The issue is the toolbar ribbon is missing on the graphics? See below

 

Any ideas? Thanks

Steve

[DarrenP]

it looks like a graphics card malfunction

[Mark_Wigan]

ned, did you ever get this sorted?

sbauman67 i would be inclined to aggree with Darren considering that your 2 graphics scores are only providing you a score of just 1.0 

[DarrenP]

you need to run a stress test on your graphics card to make sure its working

[blair]

Check your power cable from the Power Supply to your Graphics Card. This card requires a above-board separate power cable to supply power to the card for proper function. The card will work, but in a greatly reduced mode.

[CelticDesignServices]

Not sure if this is still an issue with 2012 but I do recall a while back that the Windows color scheme you had selected could very well cause these types of issues on the Inventor toolbars.

I wanna say that was back with Windows 2k if I can recall. Once I changed the color scheme, it was fine.

I haven't seen that issue though since moving off W2K and in turn with newer releases of Inventor....until now.

But yes, you gotta make sure you have a graphics card capable of doing the graphics heavy tasks of CAD.

Next to massive amounts of RAM, I always get a maxed out or semi-maxed our graphics card.

[blair]

Also make sure your display settings are native resolution and your icons are set to normal size 100%.

[sbauman67]

• Darren and Mark-Graphics card malfunction? Maybe, CPU (prime95) and GPU (FurMark) stress tested both failed.

• Blair-I have checked the power cables to the graphics card and everything looks correct. Two single power cables directly from the power supply are plugged into the graphics card.

• Celtic-I have checked the color scheme and tryed different setting, does not seem eliminate the problem.
• Blair-The display is set to the Native resolution but the icon are not visable so who knows what the setting is for the size.

The next things I am going to try:

1. I am going to check the motherboard Bios and make sure the motherboard does not have an on-board video and if so make sure it is not on.
2. I think the video card firmware may need to be updated due to the inconsistencies of the two different DirectX version reported back. But this is dangerous, I have never had to ever do this and I could end up with a brick.
3. Pray

[blair]

Try: RMB on screen, Screen Resolution>Make text and other items larger or smaller>Smaller - 100% (default)

[Mark_Wigan]

hi mate if it is a new laptop i would advise the retailer of the low score of 1.0 and also your stress test feedback and go down and look at a replacement that shows you that the graphics score is up around at least 6 or 7 & it is a least operational.

if the retailer is happy for you to attempt the firmware fix make sure he will replace the unit if that fails. i would still go for the replacement though.

i have previously had a video card hardware fault in a very expensive laptop. i spent weeks trouble shooting a myriad of issues and in the end it was sorted out via a 1 hour swapout buy a Dell technician under warranty.

your inventor application options and also your graphics controller will let you specify choice of either on board graphics or graphics card.

[sbauman67]

Doh! So after consulting a colleague in the IT department, our system administrator he found that the on-board video for the motherboard was still enabled.

Problem solved.  Make sure to turn off your on-board video in the bios or check to make sure you do not have one when installing a dedicated video card.

The video stress tested has passed and now I am trying to sort out why the CPU stress test is failing. Almost there, thanks for the help and suggestions.