william-swc Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 We are a Further Education College and have offered Autocad courses for a number of years. This year we have upgraded to Autocad 2010. It works fine on 2D work but crashes when working 3D. The computer specs are: CPU: Intel® Core2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00Ghz RAM: 3,576 MB total (3,150 MB free) GFX: Intel G33/G31 Express chipset family Plenty of free HDD space Winxp SP3 I suspect the problem lies with the graphics card but before we invest in 60 new graphics cards I would like to know if anyone else had this experience or if they know that it is definately the graphics card at fault? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tankman Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 I too suspect the graphic chipset. Why not try one new graphics card with some memory. I use graphics cards with 512 meg onboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Not to pick on you but you really need to look at the hardware requirements on software before spec'ing the systems. 60 systems, whew that's going to hurt. Everything else looks fine on these systems. Maybe buy 1 card and give it a test run. Do these machines have PCIe slots? Check this 1st before buying any cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Unless you bought a laptop with the capability to add-in an after-market graphics card you just might be out of luck. What is the make/model of the laptop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william-swc Posted September 9, 2009 Author Share Posted September 9, 2009 They aren't laptops they are desktops. The computers were purchased before I started my employment here and originally they weren't intended for CAD but sort of got thrown into that roll. As stated above we are a Further Education College which means we have in excess of 500 computers on this campus alone, we have 4 campuses. I've had another look at the machines and they can't take a full size graphics card. Are there mini pci cards that will run 3d Autocad? We have other desktops which are better spec'd and will take a full size card however they are currently performing a different role. We may need to swap a few computers about to get ones that are upgradeable. unfortuneately we bought over 100 new pcs last month so our budget is pretty much blown! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Desktop. Gotcha. What make/model of computer are we talking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Never mind. What you're looking for is called a low profile graphics card. They can vary in price from $50 to over $250. How many PCs need to be converted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Here are some examples of low profile PCIe graphics cards: http://www.xpcgear.com/pcielowprofile.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Low profile as Remark stated will work fine just get ones that will run AutoCAD 2010. Here is a good budget low profile card to look at. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187060 nVidia 9600GT I use an 8600GT at work and it runs 2010 just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william-swc Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 excellent thanks. yea I forgot what the term for mini graphics cards were, it's been a few years since I last worked in an actual computer store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 We're just wannabe geeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelsea1307 Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 wannabe??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 Hi, I'm ReMark, and I'm a geek! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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