laptop question

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hey!</p>

<p>I have been using a macbook through freshman year and it has worked fine for me…until now. This year I am taking an Autocad class and the program has given me a headache. I have Windows 7 on boot camp and it takes like 15 minutes for Autocad just to start up and it’s very slow to respond to anything I want to do (2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM)</p>

<p>So I’m thinking about getting a new laptop (and giving my macbook to my mom since it still works fine). Any suggestions on what kind of laptop I can get so that Autocad 2010 will run smoothly on my computer? (or any suggestions as to how to get autocad to work better on my mac?)</p>

<p>Thanks for any tips or suggestions!</p>

2

<p>Why not just do the couple of assignments you need to use Autocad for in a computer lab?</p>

3

<p>I need to bring the computer to class because there are in-class projects/assignments (that I need to complete before leaving)</p>

4

<p>Use it in the lab, that’s what I did. If that’s not possible, maybe you could upgrade to 4 or 8 GB of ram so that you can have a larger partition for Windows. Assuming that insufficient RAM is whats slowing it down, I don’t really know that much about computers. That’d be a lot cheaper than buying a new laptop anyway.</p>

5

<p>Are you using the computer while it’s plugged in? A lot of laptops have features to underclock themselves to save battery power when running on battery.</p>

6

<p>Graphics card are important for AutoCAD to run well. I believe it’s stated in the minimum or recommended requirements.</p>

7

<p>I’m using the computer when it’s plugged in. </p>

<p>The graphics card that my laptop has: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (256 MB)</p>

<p>Autocad says: 1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card</p>

<p>So it seems that it’s probably not the problem. Hmm I’ll probably ask the professor tomorrow what she thinks the problem may be</p>

8

<p>What size partition did you give Windows to run on boot camp?</p>

9

<p>I got Windows 7 from my school and the default partition size is 50 GB</p>

10

<p>A lot of these programs are known to run slowly and erratically when running through Boot Camp. That is the only reason that I generally don’t recommend Mac’s to people in engineering fields that require such programs. However, the likely culprit would be your RAM. Your graphics card is NOT a workstation-class graphics card, but neither is mine and my PC runs all that stuff just fine. Generally, those programs eat up huge amounts of RAM. Upgrading RAM in a laptop is tricky though, so you may be stuck with getting new computer if you absolutely need to do AutoCAD in class.</p>

<p>As for what kind, I have always been a fan of Lenovo (formerly IBM) Thinkpads. For AutoCAD, make sure you do have an actual graphics card in your laptop. They eat up a lot of power but Thinkpads (and probably some other laptops) come with the ability to switch between an integrated chipset and the discrete graphics card for low- and high- power modes with the click of a button. 2 GB or 3 GB RAM should be fine if you are running it in just plain windows, but if you really want to be safe, go with 4 GB. RAM is cheap these days.</p>