Intel RC440 BX motherboard with TNT2 + 16 meg on board
Pentium II - 400
64 meg ram
30 Gbyte harddisk
running windows 98 Se and protel 99 SE
NEVER had protel crap out on me WHEN it was running ALONE !! (launching
other things would make it lock up occasionally) . Have made a lot of
designs ( 6 layer boards smd ) on that thing and now retired it. It
wasn't exactly a supersonic hyperjet computer but protel didn't crash
Upgraded to a PIV 2 Ghz with a gig of ram and Win2k SP3.
Intel 854BG motherboard.
A couple of things : If you are going to run a CAD application reserve
one machine for nothing but CAD. Do not EVER run ANYTHING else on it ,
and especialy do not use the same machine to surf the web . Boot it ,
launch protel , close protel , shutdown computer. That is all that is
allowed. I use norton antivirus to protect the gateway between the
machine and the file server.
Protel is a RESOURCE hog , not a memory hog !. You can beef up your
machine with all the ram you can cram in it. There is only 64K of memory
allocated for resource management. When it is up it is up. And protel
eats that chunk of memory like crazy. Protel only loads servers during
it session run. Open a text document inside protel : the text server
fires up , hogs resources . close all text documents : memory gets freed
but the server itself keeps running. Go to the server control panel and
manually STOP the text server. Just have windows resourcemeter open and
see what happens to the resources. You will be amazed. During a typicla
run so many servers inside protel get started but never stopped.
Other known resource hogs are netscape , internet explorer , acrobat
writer and reader , and any office program.
In other words , when you run protel :don't run anything else.
Other thing : There are apparently a couple of memory leaks inside
protel 99Se . If you leave protel open unattened overnight : Bad idea.
If you don't need it shut it down.
Another tinhg. Before closing down protel. Close your designs. Then
close protel. The next time you continue a session pick it from the
recently used files.
We have a bunch of licences here and i have people whining that it
sometimes behaves funny. Well you should see what they have open at the
same time . You wouldnt believe your eyes.
When i run a session i close all applications , pop up the task manger ,
kill off anything i find there except for Navprotect ( Antivirus ) ,
Systray ( which you cant kill anyway ) and Explorer ( that is you
desktop itself ) , and then fire up protel. Runs liek a dream everytime.
Another thing NEVER EVER use the database format . Microsoft ODBC is
just a pile of junk.The first goofball program that comes along and
modifies or updates on of the ODBC components can ruin protel. Use the
windows filesystem when creating a new project ( on 99 or 99 Se )
Have been using protel since it still was a DOS program ( Autotrax and
Schematic for dos ) and i'm very happy with it. Made maybe over 800
boards in my lifetime with it. Even used 99Se it a couple of times to
route an analog IC ( and i mean routing the silicon ! not a board ! ,
we would export the cad data from Analog Artist or Cadence , import in
protel , route the cells , export to DXf and re-import the metal layers
in Cadence . I work for a company that makes integrated circuits : see
below )
>I don't know if this is the same problem I've seen, but I suspect it is,
>just manifesting differently on my machine (CADzilla, dual PIII-1GHz, W2K
>SP2, 512MB RAM, Matrox G450, 99SE SP6)
>
>99SE rules of thumb:
>1) When 99SE is loading, DO NOT switch the focus away from it
>2) If you are thinking of switching the focus during loading, see rule #1
>
Vinnie's rules :
1) When 99SE is loading, DON'T DO ANYTHING .
2) When 99SE is running Don't run anything else.
3) If you break either rule 1 or 2 and protel craps out , ask someone to kick you in
the butt
and then study rules 1 and 2.
I'm not saying protel doesn't have any problems and bugs , i'm just sying that a lot
depends on the environment you are running it on. And we all know that windows isn't a
perfect environment to start with. But Alas , Protel doesn't exist for iRMX.
Phew. This one is bound to generate some responses :-)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_____________
/____________/ Vincent Himpe
// _____ ___/ Lab Manager
/ \ \ / / / ST Microelectronics
/___\ \ / / / 5510 Six Forks Road . Suite 200
/______//_/__/ Raleigh NC 27612
Tel : (919) 850 6070
Fax : (919) 850 6689
e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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