CPU Overload Using Archicad 23

[griggadee]

Hi All,

Ok, I have created a video of the issue here. Apologies for the sketchy narration haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOzQKnUA-Gk

Essentially, a couple of days ago, my laptop started crashing whilst using Archicad 23. It had been fine until that point, for the last few years. All of a sudden, when I open an Archicad file that I have been working on for weeks, my CPU is maxed out and shortly after, if I continue to work on the drawing, it crashes my computer. I have no idea why!

Any suggestions as to what could be causing this CPU overload would be greatly appreciated. Next step is to try re-installing the operating system first and then Archicad. Latest version no doubt. After that, I'll need to buy a new laptop, which ideally I can avoid!

Thanks,

[Pierre Polesel]

Good evening,

In your video when you hovered over your graphics card icon at the bottom right of the screen, it said "NVIDIA Geforce GTX960M inactive". Have you tested your graphics card to see if it still works properly and checked its driver?

Have you also checked the amount of space on your hard drive?

Good reception,

Cordially,

Peter

[Karl Ottenstein]

Agree with Pierre - it seems that you have your graphics settings for the laptop set to prefer the built in Intel onboard graphics, which will perform abysmally with Archicad.

The only other thing I can think of quickly is if you have introduced some object, between when the file performed well and now, that has a high polygon count.  Download the Goodies package if you don't already have it and run the PolyCount add-on to see if there is some object or mesh that has a very high number of polygons, dominating the model.  Some of the 3D plant objects are notoriously bad.

Also, I can't remember if AC 23 does background drawing updates.  If so, that could be part of the slowdown.

The file size increase could be cached drawings.  Personally, I always keep the checkbox shown below UN-checked to keep the file smaller.  This should have no impact on your CPU usage issue though, but you did mention the file size as bothering you.

 

[griggadee]

Thanks for both of your replies, guys. Apologies for the delay in responding, I have actually just embarked on a 3-day mission, where I wiped and re-installed the operating system on my laptop, as I just couldn't find a solution to the cpu overload problem. This seems to have worked, thank god, but the CPU does still peak up from time to time, but no crashing as yet, thankfully! I have absolutely no idea why this happened, just out of the blue. It has been fine for years. My harddrive space was down to about 20gb of free space, which could have been a problem, but I suspect not.

Regarding the graphics card, this only kicks in when Archicad is launched. It is definitely working fine, and takes over from the Intel graphics once I open an Archicad file. I haven't tried the polygon tool in the goodies, but I do have quite a few 3d plants in my files, which definitely put extra strain on the computer when working on the files. I tend to hide these elements when I work on my projects, until they are complete.

Thanks again, both.