Not responding

I am using AutoCad 2011 Lt and when i use the hatch function the screen freezes for upto 10 minutes but more ofter a couple of minutes before it comes back to life with the area hatched. Any ideas why this happens and what ic can do to speed things up?

Maybe there are a number of gaps in your geometry that AutoCAD is trying to reconcile before preceding.

I assume this is happening when hatching from the Ribbon, Does it stop responding during the hatch preview, or after you click within an area to be hatched.

If it's the former, try disabling HPQUICKPREVIEW, as that literally causes AutoCAD to evaluate the entire screen for every possible hatch-able region. Zooming in so AutoCAD has less to calculate also helps.

Since AutoCad 2011 has dynamic hatching (or preview) that could also be slowing you down. Try turning it off by using the command HPQUICKPREVIEW toggle.

Assuming you are using the laptop in your profile...I would bring up the discussion of RAM and Video Card. IF there are gaps in your drawing, or LOTS of objects visible on the screen (rasters, .pdfs, etc.) the dynamic hatch seems to want to search through everything visible. Try isolating just what is to be hatched? Simplify it for ACAD.

Thanks for all the responses, i am not using the same laptop i now have a new PC which about 11 months old so everything should be up to date. The 'Not reposnding' happens when i click in a certain area to hatch, the screen then freezes for anything upto 10 minutes and i can't do anything without shutting AutoCad down which very often looses some of my latest actions. If anyone has any more ideas it would be good, it is very frustrating.

Interesting, I never knew about this before. Seems you can make the preview time out, but continue the command, also.

Apparently HPQUICKPREVTIMEOUT was added to 2012 to address the problem HPQUICKPREVIEW causes, as that command does not exist in AutoCAD2011.

Matt, is hatching slow all the time, or only when hatching complex regions or complex drawings? IE, if you start a new drawing and draw a circle, is hatching still slow?

The more information on a drawing the slower it is, i have tried a simple circle as suggested as it was immediate however the drawing i am working on is very complicated and i need quite a bit of different hatching on it. Twice alredy this morning i have had to abandon a drawing and close it down throught the task manager as it had frozen for upto 10 minutes each time.

I would suggest zooming in as close as possible while still having the entire hatch area visible, to reduce the amount of data AutoCAD has to analyze. I have encountered the same problem you're experiencing, and you may also try hatching by picking an object instead of an internal point, as that's a much easier calculation. If there is no "object" that defines the hatch boundary, you may be able to use the BPOLY command to a polyline boundary, which can then be hatched as an object. Additionally, if you use the Hatch Dialog box, rather than Hatching from the Ribbon, you have the option to define a boundary set, rather than having AutoCAD analyze the entire display.

If you can post the drawing and point out the areas that need hatched, we may be able to determine if the problem is related to your particular settings, or whether it's due to the complexity of the drawing itself.

Try selecting a new origin for the hatch.

AutoCAD has long been buggy when dealing with hatches, one little something in the drawing will have it lagging.

If possible post the file here.

I have used the 'select' an item on many occasions and yes this is a lot faster, however sometimes like today i have a detailed property elevation that i need to hatch and it is realy detailed so if i was going to set a polyline around the hatch area it could take quite a long time and when youhave quite a lot of areas like this it is really frustrating

What happens if you freeze all the layers that aren't used to define the hatch boundary just prior to hatching?

There may or may not be an easy solution, but my experience is that posting a drawing (when possible) usually helps with getting the quickest/most acceptable resolution.

I have used the 'select' an item on many occasions and yes this is a lot faster, however sometimes like today i have a detailed property elevation that i need to hatch and it is realy detailed so if i was going to set a polyline around the hatch area it could take quite a long time and when youhave quite a lot of areas like this it is really frustrating

Sometimes you have to do what you do not wish to do. As SLW210 was implying AutoCAD historically has had problems with hatching. Even the most powerful PC's have issues with hatching. I know this from experience as the PC I am working on is a powerhouse.

A polygon (although tedious as it may be) may be necessary in order to accomplish your goal. Sometimes the most tried and true methods are the best even though it is not the easiest method. After all the time spent on trying to figure out the easiest way possible eventually defeats the purpose of saving time because of the law of diminishing return.

Have you tried the BOUNDARY command to create a polygon to choose for hatching? It may present the same problems but it is worth a shot.

Try Copying everything (or Wblock) to a new blank drawing.