There probably isn't much you can do except hit the power button and hope for the best.

yeah, with my tech support hat on the procedure is cross your fingers and hit the power button.

I had a similar thing happen on a server during a reboot at 2:00AM was just the update failing because some file had already been updated or something.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Thank you both.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Sup guys, so I'm on the verge of landing a fairly insanely well paid design project and am going to need a portable solidworks workstation if it goes ahead... my poor little $450 laptop just isn't quite up to scratch and if I'll be dropping serious coin for a legit solidworks seat, might as well get the hardware to match...

Been looking around, and getting solidworks to do anything with the GPU seems to be a massive pain in the arse (most gaming cards just don't do anything for you). For those not familiar, you can do real time rendering with 'real view' if you have a quadro card. That would be nice, but I'd also want to accelerate normal rendering through photoview as much as possible.

Few options I've explored:

Find a laptop with a quadro card - MSI makes a quadro workstation that fits the bill nicely but haven't found any in Aus, also found this one with decent upgrade options: http://www.affordablelaptops.com.au/contents/en-us/d453_quadro-graphics-mobile-workstation.html

Decent laptop with external PCIe and an external card, IDK if this even exists or is possible...

Custom build a laptop from scratch (we can dream)

TLDR - After a laptop to run solidworks 2014 with GPU acceleration - 2-3K budget.

Thankyouss
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Buy retina MacBook.
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

…..17" or imac 27"
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

I probably should have mentioned that solidworks is windows only, the thought of getting a mac just to stick win 8.1 on it is somewhat comical.

The retina display is nice stevo but would do nothing more for me CPU grunt wise than an ultrabook half the price...
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Keep in mind solidworks realistically is pretty light compared to games.

I think you should be more looking for 16/32gb or ram and good build quality. Also if you want to run solidworks without mouse. You won't get a better touch pad than a mac.

Current MacBooks are overpriced but as I am currently running Xp and 7 inside VMs on my 2yr old MacBook I still think it's worth it.

Steve
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

quote:

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Originally posted by marto:
Keep in mind solidworks realistically is pretty light compared to games.

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I have been looking for a laptop with good graphics performance too - it's not easy!

If this is just to tote between work and home, how about a tiny desktop built around a micro-ATX mother board with plenty of RAM and a good video card? If your work can find a spare monitor, mouse & keyboard, just carrying the PC is about the same weight as a 'workstation' laptop. The advantage is in the 'proper' CPU, extra RAM and whatever video card you feel like paying for.

If you need to cart the computer everywhere you go, then you probably DO need one of those expensive workstation laptops. apart from a fast graphics chip, I recommend the largest SSD you can afford; its made my PC seem at least twice as fast

Congrats on the new job!

There is so much crap out there and they all have crap windows 8 on em.

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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Congratulations. Bought a work station from http://www.boxxtech.com/ once. worked well with no glitches.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

Amen to that! I tried to love Win 8 but its an even bigger mistake that Vista IMHO, Google fooled MS into chasing a one-size-fits-all mobile platform that simply reinvents the ages old mainframe terminal with more bling. It is doomed to failure once everyone realises the limitations and that Google (or MS) owns your data.

BTW: I was checking out laptops at JB HiFi today; irrespective of the CPU /GPU specs, the screen performance was nowhere near to a good desktop monitor for brightness or off-angle viewing. Asus screens looked the best but still nowhere near my mid-range Dell monitors.

Thats why we went with a macbook pro with retina 1tb ssd and 16gb for jules computer-got loads of grunt and looks epic-was $3k ish havent tried windows on it but thats what steve and aaron do-
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

Whatever you do make sure you get a commercial/business grade laptop.
The cheaper stuff will die after 53 weeks if you are really using it (just mechanically).
Macbooks are the most physically robust, or at least the aluminium ones were, i think they are all polycarb these days? But in companies i knew that had fleets of laptops sales managers who were a) liked by the big bosses and b) destroying IBM T60s (one of the most robust commercial laptops) were upgraded to the macbooks (running windows) because they lasted longer.


I speccd out a lenovo thinkpad w530 the prices are how much extra the option cost over the base model.

I5 3.3Ghz CPU (going much faster is diminishing returns)
win7 pro x64 (you will also find the business laptops can come with 7)
upgrade to 15.6" 1080P LCD $110
nvidia quadro K2000M with 2gb (upgrade cost $265 nfi if its worth it but solidworks says it'll do realview)
8Gb DDR3
backlit keyboard $50
9cell battery $55
175W charger $8
Bluetooth (whatever you get, get one with internal bluetooth then mouse + keyboard need no dongles and bluetooth peripherals seem to just work better)
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN $40.70
Integrated Mobile Broadband $77.00 (so you can stick a sim card in it and be online)

Total $2318
http://shopap.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/w-series/w530/

Now thats with a 300Gb spinning hdd. I'd chuck that and stick in the biggest intel SSD you can get, its just much cheaper to get that outside lenovo, I do have a bit of a relationship there but i don't know if it'll net you much vs online. still worth a phone call i guess ;->

There is also the dell precision range that come with quadro cards
http://www.dell.com/au/business/p/precision-laptops?~ck=anav
Be sitting down when you see the prices (but they are higher spec than that lenovo). Also you can get them in 17" screens.
However if you are interested in those let me know I have an account with them and the discounts vs the online price can be pretty significant (30-50% is common) and they can often do more customisation than you can do online.

If you skip the realview requirement you can get something like a http://shopap.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x230t/?ipromoID=auow_mht_tbconvertibles_x230t
$2000 gets you a convertible laptop/tablet with enough grunt to run solidworks and a daylight readable screen
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets