Final Configuration and Order

We finalized the configuration for the new CADstations. Stuck with the quad-core, dropped to (2)1GB RAM modules, leaving two slots open for future upgrade, and dropped the 16x DVD reader - why we had it and the DVD-RW to begin with is thought to have been a simple slip-up. End result is a computer package with a 19" LCD monitor for $2100 running WinVista 32-bit. Big drop in price from the previously reported $3100 for the original configuration. Must be that time-of-day, day-of-week, week-of-month ordering cycle Dell is so notorious for doing.

The test machine goes back into the server room where it will receive the OS install and all the standard software. Once the software installs are confirmed and tested, the hard drive will become the image drive for all the computers.

Not everyone in the office gets a new quad-core. Mainly the production engineers and designers will get quad-core PCs. We've got a few dual-core PCs at various levels of capability and those will get an OS upgrade with a clean install of all the standard software. Remain staff such as non-CAD upper management and administrative staff will get those.

Surprisingly, we did choose to avoid upgrading to MS Office 2007 at this time. I'm glad about that. We have Office 2003 and I was never certain why we upgraded from Office 2000. For the Acer notebook I have at home I switched to OpenOffice for dealing with Word and Excel files. It takes some effort get accustomed to it but I'd be doing the same effort if not more with MS Office 2007 and cussing up a storm because I paid for the thrill.

I really wish we could have used the 64-bit OS but there were simply too many programs that did not function with it. We'll likely take care of that when considering the upgrade to BIM software and adding RAM. That might be a two-year wait but who knows for certain.

It will be interesting to see how people react to the new machines. They'll be going from a single-core 2.26GHz CPU to a quad-core 2.4GHz. At 2GB, RAM will be doubled. We'll also put RAMDisk software on their machines, probably running at 384MB, to speed up AutoCAD by putting the temp and Xref files there. It noticeably reduces hard drive access activity.

Now to fill in some spreadsheet commissioning forms using OpenOffice Calc.

Testing Comes to an End

After running through some normal functions with AutoCAD and assorted support software, I came to conclusion that this is not the time for 64-bit WinVista. Several programs run on 32-bit WinVista from what I found by installing and checking them on my personal Acer notebook but they either will not install at all on 64-bit or refuse to operate on 64-bit after installation.

Thus, I've recommended we go with 32-bit WinVista for the CADstation. That still means we'll have a few program difficulties. CADzation's AcroPlot Pro does not operate on WinVista at all as of February 2007 as indicated in their "help" statement which, in my opinion, is not exactly conducive to making friends when chastising people for making the change to WinVista.

I initially recommended sticking with WinXP so as to limit the degree of change we'd experience with new CADstations and upgrading to AutoCAD 2008 but the desire by others on the management team led me to concede that we might as well add one more change factor to the mix. The physical change-out of machines was tough enough but the trade-off of a newer much faster machine might ease the difficulties of becoming familiar with new software.

On the new machine, I installed a demo copy of Cenatek's RAMDiskVE software to determine if using a ram disk would enhance a 64-bit PC as much as it did a 32-bit machine. It was not as much of a help as I had experienced with 32-bit WinXP. Nonetheless, this is what happened when testing a plot session of the 100-drawing Sheet Set to DWF files. Seems like there it more balanced activity across the CPU cores but that bounced up and down across the four cores throughout the plot session.


I suspect the benefit of running the ram disk was either offset by the use of a 64-bit OS and CAD program or the test which loads one drawing at a time simply could not throw as much as possible at the machine to test push the limits. I do know that a ram disk on 32-bit WinXP definitely makes a difference with AutoCAD. Put the temp and reference files on the ram disk instead of the hard drive and the program is much faster. It might also be that a ram disk would be proven more beneficial after a machine is used for six-twelve months and the hard drive accumulates miscellaneous files with the associated fragmentation.

My final recommendation to the management team was that when the time came to move to BIM (Building Information Management) software, most likely Autodesk Revit MEP Suite, we would assess the impact of running BIM software on the existing 32-bit WinVista OS. If at that time, we decide it's too slow or other limitations appear, we could switch to 64-bit WinVista and likely have better results. It would also give us the ability to double the RAM on the motherboard to 8GB from the current 4GB.

So what will we end up with as a CADstation? A Dell Precision 390 with an Intel 2.4GHz Quad-Core CPU with (2)2GB RAM modules on a motherboard having four memory slots. We started out with a budget for each new CADstation and no one can seem to recall how that number was determined. Now we're up by another 33%. The hard drive will only be a single 80GB 3GB/s SATA. I'd like to go larger simply to improve the real-life drive access time for AutoCAD (big-time virtual memory user) but that's a sacrifice to be made at this stage. 32-bit WinVista Business will be the OS.

We are also moving to 19" dual-monitor LCD systems (1280x1024). Some time last year, an employee did the two monitor routine on their own by providing a second LCD and new graphics card. Since then a couple of the senior staff running CAD have opted for dual screens and do like it once they're accustomed to the look and feel. I'm running a Dell 24o7WFP at 1920x1200 resolution. I'm different from others in the office in that I prefer to run at max resolution to see more of the drawing.

We are having to get more LCD monitors that originally expected. I made the point recently that if one puts a new 19" LCD monitor on a desk right next to the five-year-old 19" CRT, we'll be buying another bunch of monitors.

I had one of those CRTs and realized one day that when lifting my glasses and putting my nearsighted eyeballs close to the screen, the clarity was lousy. I brought in an Envision 19" LCD (1600x1280) I had recently acquired for home to swap with the CRT and was shocked at how dramatic the difference was. After that I requested the Dell 24" and got it after little bit of high-level stonewalling.

Testing the Beast

Got to working the quad-core PC with AutoCAD 2008. The 64-bit WinVista box is on the left side and displayed on the screen, four little boxes showing the four cores. The 32-bit WinXP box is on the right side. Monitor is a Dell 24" LCD running 1920x1200 resolution. And, yes, that's a Palm Vx plugged into the XP box - it's still functioning after seven years of use.

Tried working a normal course of activity on the quad-core by modifying drawings as I needed. Set AutoCAD to save files in the2004 format to maintain compatibility with the program on the other box.

AutoCAD and 64-bit WinVista work well together. Getting accustomed to a new OS and CAD program result in a few glitches but once I understand where things have moved and the "correct" way to access a particular function, CAD work is just fine.

Did a stress test using 100 mechanical drawings (all HVAC stuff) on a high-end resort spa project in the mountains west of Denver. The drawings consisted of full floor plans at small scale, partial floor plans at 1/8" scale, enlarged plans of residential units - four to sheet, equipment schedules, details, and diagrams for piping and duct risers.

Using AutoCAD's Sheet Set Manager for the first time was actually pretty easy. I goofed up the first attempt, realized my mistake, erased it and started over within five minutes. Another five minutes and I was ready to plot 100 DWF plans into a single electronic file.

AutoCAD 2008 ran through the plot session just fine without stopping. Speed was not much different from that experienced on the dual-core 3Ghz PC. I didn't bother to time the event as real judgement of speed was the perception of how it ran rather than clock time. Loading on the four cores was a bit uneven throughout the session.

I then remembered that AutoCAD has for years recommended that one does not allow Windows to manage virtual memory (the paging file or swap file.) Instead, they recommend fixing the paging file to maintain the maxium memory size indicated. From startup, AutoCAD itself does not play well with RAM and it's constantly swapping out data to virtual memory.

Back with AutoCAD R14, the memory size was advised to be 4 times the amount of RAM installed on the PC. In the XP box, I set the paging file at twice the installed 2GB RAM. For the Vista box, I set it to 6GB (1.5 times the 4GB RAM installed) and ran the test again. The 100-drawing test ran noticeably faster, between 30-50% faster, and the loading of the four cores was much better. Load seldom exceeded 50% for any real length of time. The drawings showing residential unit plans took more time to plot that other drawing types. I guessing that is because there were at least two and up to four architectural floor plans used as external reference files (Xref) and that was increasing the files size that AutoCAD had to work with. RAM demand ran pretty steady throughout the plot session.

As expected, software issues arose with the need for 64-bit versions. There's a good hand-full or more of programs that we need that will not run. A couple others run in a modified mode that looks different but the reason is not exactly clear. Oddly, a couple programs run just fine when I expected them to have problems.

Out of the entire process it necessary to understand that the speed by which a computer runs AutoCAD is dependent upon CPU speed, RAM amount and video card. The more balance those three are in their relative capabilities, the better AutoCAD will run. Letting any one of those items run out to their greatest capability will not necessarily result in better speed. The program is only as fast as the weakest link. As in the above test, AutoCAD hovered around 1.5GB of RAM usage when a full 4GB was available. It still needed to swap out data to virtual memory on the hard drive so rotation speed will at times make a difference as could network speed especially when making plot files.

Lots of fun and I get to do all it weekend, too.

Two PCs on the Desk

IT guy warned me at 9am that I'd be getting the new Quad-Core box later in the morning. By 11am the new box was on the desk. It took another 20 minutes or so to get the new and old PCs running properly through the KVM switch. One hiccup was being stuck with a 100Mbps ethernet switch so I could have two boxes connected to the same drop cable. A serious fallback from the 1000Mbps connectivity I had with the old box.

My old PC is better than that for much of the staff, an Intel Core Duo 3GHz with 2GB RAM and a 128 MB video card running WinXP Pro. I ran a 256MB RAM disk to store temp and Xref files from AutoCAD which provided a seriously noticeable speed improvement when loading drawing files.

I've worked WinVista somewhat since getting an Acer notebook using WinVista Home Premium in June so I was familiar with several of the peculiarities such as the frequent popups wanting me to confirm an action about to occur. Interesting approach to so-called security, keep asking for confirmation at nearly every step of the way. No doubt there is a way to stop that process and similar ones.

It was the first time I'd seen AutoCAD 2008 (missed 2005, 2006 and 2007). A number of tweaks were needed. It seems that one cannot get all the preferred settings to be in place for a new user. Aggravating when one doesn't know where or how to set those preferences. The normal places to look have changed so a bit of hunting is required. Got through those for the most part with a good dose of help from our CAD Manager who has been using AutoCAD 2008 for a few months.

I expected the usefulness of a Quad-Core machine to be subjective. The improvement will be nearly nonexistent for most functions. The staff will see a great change simply because they're going from old to new PCs. When running CAD greater speed will be found in working with complex drawings and running batch routines such a plotting 136 drawing files to PLT format for a printer and creating 136 PDF files of the same sheets. (I think I just found a good testing scenario.)

Over the years, I've been fortunate to keep running fairly good machines (or at least upgrading them to where they held up under my demands.) What I eventually realized is that one will push a new machine until it "breaks" by blue-screening, locking up AutoCAD, freezing WinExplorer or some other result that forces a hard restart. I eventually began saying with a new machine I could go from zero to lockup faster that ever before. My old CADstation lasted three days. The older one before that lasted a week.

Just realized that plotting will be a bit of a trick. The two large format printers (Xerox 810) are not yet setup with 64-bit drivers and neither are a couple of other smaller ones. Two others are available so I'll see what happens.

It will be interesting to see how AcroPlot Pro runs on the new box. It's software that will process drawing files into PDF or DWF (AutoCAD's Drawing Web Format) in a fast way with plenty of options on the end result. It allows us to create PDF files from an entire set of drawings (10, 30, 70, 100, etc.) Select the drawings, check to make sure it's running well and head off for a bathroom break, refill the coffee mug and grab some office supplies. AcroPlot usually creates PDF files that are somewhat to substantially smaller than those created when using Adobe Acrobat Pro or another PDF printer program. It took a bit of convincing for our company to get AcroPlot Pro. I offered to pay the $900 for bunch of licenses provided I was paid $1 for each PDF created using the software. After much discussion the company agreed to pop for one license and the CAD Manager convinced them to 2.5 times as much for five licenses - a much better deal. I know this all sounds like a ad pitch but the stuff simply works very well.

An early start tomorrow to have fun.

Behold the Beast

The new CADstation arrived today, a Dell Precision 390 with an Intel 2.4GHz Quad-Core, 4GB RAM, two 80GB hard drives, and 256MB video card. Oh, yeah, it's running MS WinVista 64-bit.

The premise for the new machines is to replace the old Dell Dimension 4500 (2.26GHz Pentium 4) with 1GB RAM, and 64MB video. 1GB NICs were added to speed up file transfer a few months ago. OS is WinXP, 32-bit.

We've been running AutoCAD 2004 for a quite a while and are upgrading to AutoCAD 2008 as these new machines are rolled out and have the intention of moving on to BIM software in 18-24 months.

Our IT staff (an outsourced company that is on-site daily Mon-Fri for a scheduled few hours) will be installing the standard list of software as successful as it may be for the 64-bit part. AutoCAD will of it own install process determine whether to install the 32- or 64-bit version based upon the operating system. Saw the Beast in the server room with the monitor showing the installation of some software within an hour or so of arrival. I think they want to get the machine on my desk as fast as possible.

Now to clean off the desk to make room for two boxes with a KVM switch.

The Initial Purpose

As I begin this, the original premise for this blog is to document the process of upgrading the corporate computers as CADstations. I'm to test a new PC in a live-design environment to confirm the configuration, program compatibility with the operating system, validation of changes made to our menus for AutoCAD 2008. All of that to be done with five working days of time. I will document as much as I can as well as I can if for no other reason than to recall what has transpired so I don't forget.

Future content will change over time once the new machine is validated. It will shift towards the operation of CAD in the Mechanical side of life in Construction Engineering.