AutoCAD 2009 slow or non responsive

Hi there,

My AutoCAD is running really slow (took me 2 hours just to plot 10 drawings). It used to be just with plotting, but now it slow with opening files, closing files, saving files, basically anything.

My company has the same computers and same versions and such and no one else seems to have this problem. When I first got here, I had to get tech support install a whole new drive where the drawings are saved. I'm wondering if there is something wrong with that?

Anyway I'm not sure what the computer specs are (is there a way to find that out?).

Anyone know of anything I can do?

Go to Windows > Control Panel > System & Maintenance > System for the computer specs.

While you are in there click on Network and Internet > Network Options. Click the Delete All button on there to clean out all your temp files and internet history.

Does your drawing workspace contain a huge scale list? They can build up over time as new scales are added. I've been told it can slow the processing way down.

Go to AutoCAD Tools > Options > User Preferences > Edit Scale List.

If there are more than 20 or so scales to use for viewports on the list then delete the ones youdon't use.

It seems that AutoCAD keeps algorithms for each scale on the list, probably in a dll file or a lot of them.

Thanks for the info Dana..

I checked the scales and they seem to be fine.

My specs are:

Windows XP

Intel® Xeon® CPU

E5506 @ 2.13GHz

2.99 GB of RAM

I went into Task manager and the CPU usage is varying from 0 to 2 % and PF Usage is 937 MB. I don't know if that helps or not as I'm sorta dumb when it comes to computers.

How do your system specs compare to those of other computers being used for the same task? Did you get the "slowest" computer as the newbie?

Do you know if your version of AutoCAD is current with all updates?

Are Xrefs attached to the drawings?

When did the problem first occur?

Have any software or hardware changes been made to your system lately?

As far as I know, I have the exact same computer as everyone else.

It started the day I got there actually... I just got transferred to this new building just last week.. supposedly these are new computers so I dont know what kind of updates are on it...

Yes, there is xrefs on most of the drawings... but why would the same drawings work perfectly for others and not mine?

I guess I'll be calling tech support once again for the hundredth time... they basically told me they couldnt do anything about it. Maybe I should beg them to uninstall it and reinstall and maybe that would make a difference?

Check out your plotters, make sure that Autocad isn't looking for a plotter it can't find...

To check your product updates, click on the tiny little satellite dish icon, the communication center and look at the bottom line.

See attached image.

To check your op system updates, go to Control Panel > Security > Check for Updates.

Thanks for everything peeps but it's not helping...

Maybe instead of trying to solve everything at once I'll try and solve individual problems... and maybe that will help with everything else.

When I type "plot" or file > plot, or click the plot icon it takes a good 1.5 minutes to load the plot screen, from there, once I click OK, it takes another 2 minutes to get actually sent to the printer. I changed my plotter settings to what my company wants. I heard that AutoCAD has to "search" for printers/plotters, files etc, and I figured if it can't find it then that may take a while. I'm thinking that's what's going on. AutoCAD is "searching" for something that's either non existent, or way in the depths of computer world..

Problem is I don't know how to fix that.. I'd imagine that would be something that you can't help me with, and it is individual depending on my computer, the server, where the files are located, the company.. yadda yadda

Ah ha!

I solved it. Basically I have come to the conlusion that AutoCAD was searching for the plot style table and was taking forever to find one. I narrowed down its search in the options menu and voila! It no longer takes a long time to bring up the plot screen! I hope that solved everything else to. Such a relief. Thanks everyone!

Glad to hear you found a solution. Thanks for updating us.

Ok.. the printing thing is solved but it's still taking up to 3 minutes to save... and it freezes up my computer so I can't do anything else in the meantime. Suggestions?

Maybe it's a pathing problem. You save your files to a network right?

Maybe it's a pathing problem. You save your files to a network right?

Yup... could it be the automatic save location?

It happens when it automatically saves as well as when i manually save it.

There are Xrefs in my drawing to... could that be an issue?

You save back to the network whether it is manual or automatic right?

How many xrefs are attached?

You save back to the network whether it is manual or automatic right?

 

How many xrefs are attached?

With the drawings that I am working with there are several with just one xref. But it doesn't matter if I am in one or the other, I still get the same lag when saving.

I've checked my options and it seems to be fine, but I may have missed or overlooked something. I'm not very experienced when it comes to Autocad.. still learnin

As far as I know it saves back to the network