Inventor 2014 crashes on opening or creating new part or assembly

[cliff.warner]

I am a mentor for First and am having a lot of trouble getting Inventor to work.  The basic problem is that Autodesk Inventor 2014 will start up, but it crashes out as soon as I try to either open or create a part or assembly.  I see it starting to load various things in the lower right corner and it gets to a "Loading..." and then abruptly closes the program.

My computer specs are below.  I contacted support and we went through what they can for a "student" copy, which is to verify specs of the computer, and then do a complete reinstall after a very thorough uninstall (I followed everything they said).  I downloaded the installer download from support with firewall off, internet security off, and virus software off.  I installed it with administrative privaleges with virus protection software shut off, and then opened Inventor for the first time with administrative privaleges.  After the hours of work for all of that, it still crashes jsut the same.  So, I am out of ideas.  Anyone have a clue as to what is causing Inventor to crash?

Computer specs:

Lenovo Y580 laptop

Intel i7-3610QM, 2.3GHZ

6.0GB RAM

NVidia GeForce GTX 660M (driver 9.18.13.697 - which the most current)

Windows 7 premium 64 bit

Thanks,

Cliff

[aaronhai]

Hi cliff.warner,

Welcome to Autodesk Discussion Group.

We do not see NVidia GeForce GTX 660M listed as the certified graphic hardware under the Autodesk Certified Hardware List. The list will show the range of graphic hardware certified to run with Autodesk Inventor.

That said, you can try to upgrade your current driver to the latest version 320.49 listed in NVIDIA website and see if that works for you. 

Thank you.

[cliff.warner · Accepted solution]

FYI, my driver is up to date, we are referencing different driver codes.  Your reference is for the overall GeForce driver package, and my driver number was the specific driver that is for my model that you see after install.  Running an update did not change anything.

Turning off the GeForce 660M altogether and running off the Intel HD graphics 4000 built into the i7 processor did solve things and let Inventor 2014 run.