I've just started a new job taking over from a graphics designer who's going back to college.

He uses Corel X3 and since he has all the necessary files and images saved in that format already it made sense for me to get a copy also. So when my boss asked me what software I would require I said to get Corel Draw.

As I waited for my computer to be delivered I downloaded the trial of X4 so I could practice using it. It worked fine on my home PC, bar a couple of chokes on some large .ai files, but I'll forgive that.

Yesterday I got a brand new PC, with Windows XP Pro with 1 gig of ram, a 2 gig processer, not top spec, but more than my home PC and also certainly above the min specs written on the Corel X4 box.

Anyway, the problem that I'm having is that, first off, when I launch the programme, there's a 50% chance that it will choke when I try to open a corel file or just click on "New". If I'm lucky I can then start using it but have no guarantee that it won't then just choke when I import something or try to save. When it eventually crashes (which is the only thing I can be certain of) and I end task it and try and launch it again the same thing happens and the only way I can get the programme up and running again is by rebooting the machine.

I installed the Corel service pack, but it made no difference and also wiped the whole installation and rereinstalled it, still nothing. Having explained the situ to my boss I was told I should get on to the IT guys asap but all I got was the standard "Add More RAM" response and I honestly don't think it's that.

Just for troubleshooting purposes, I took the disc home and installed X4 on my PC here. As with the trial it seems to be working perfectly, on a less powerful PC with a rather battered and worn-out XP pro install.  The only thing is that I have Service Pack 3 on my work PC but am still on SP2 here at home. Other than some conflict with other software (Office 2007, Firefox 3, AVG Antivirus, Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, VNC) I have absolutely no idea what it could be.

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of things to try:

1.  When starting up CorelDRAW (Or PhotoPaint), Hold down the F8 key while the program is starting up. A popup will ask you if you want to set your desktop environment to default. Answer "Yes".

2.  If that does not help, then on the PC, remove Corel Suite, go to the Add/Remove Programs (on the control panel) and remove the Corel Draw Graphics Suite - Windows Shell Extension. Then disable your AVG Antivirus on the PC, and reinstall CorelDraw Suite X4. Run Corel Draw, once, and then reboot, to activate your AVG.

If either of these do or do not work, let us know. In the case that these do not help, add as much information as to what you were doing when Corel crashed, and what messages, if any, came up as Corel is going down.

Hugh

When stuff happens randomly (e.g. 50% of the time you click on "New"). there's a chance that it's hardware related.

While I can't say for certain, It's possible that you have ram with a bad section that Draw sometimes fills.  I would try running a test on your RAM, there's a few good programs for this.  I think I've used Prime95 before (free), but I've been told that memtest86 is better since it does it at boot time.

Or, just swap your ram temporarily for testing purposes.

Regards,
Hendrik

It's not the RAM. Because I got a replacement PC, basically the same model but a fresh installation. The only difference being that this new install has SP2 rather than SP3. I thought that might be the problem.

Unless it's a conflict with existing software (VNC, Office 2007, Firefox 3, Acrobat 9 [AVG uninstalled]) it can only be an issue with the hardware. (It works on my busted old Dimension 1100 no problem) I also have PSP Photo X2 installed but the problem originally occured before I had installed that. PSP works like a dream, though it may well still be a graphic card problem. 

Here's the details from the PC properties:

Windows XP Pro SP2

HP dx2400 Microtower
Intel Pentium R Dual CPU
E2180 @ 2.00 GHz
1.20 Ghz, 0.99 GB of RAM

Graphics card is Intel G33/31 Express Chipset Family.

Fairly sure that's an inbuilt graphics card that's part of the motherboard. Could that be the problem? (A quick google brought up a load of game forum nerds whining about what a crap card it is so that could well be it)

This is quite a disaster

 

 

 

 

 

 I've never seen this myself, but I know Foster [Coburn, author of CorelDraw books] often refers to graphics card or driver problems in cases like these. Check tat you have the latest driver for the graphics chip, or disable it in BIOS and put in another reliable graphics card. Remember CorelDraw does not require that much of graphics power since it's not at all dealing with 3D graphics, so any stable older card will do. I have had great results with a Nvidia TNT2 card for many years. Also ATI cards have been stable for me. Currently running on a Nvidia Geforce 7600 GS. No problems.

That said, I had some trouble after installing X4 the first time. It simply wouldn't run untill I uninstalled and reinstalled with the antivirus (AVG) completely shut off ( I think I had to uninstall it temporarily - a nuisance I know). After that X4 runs error free.

Best place to start with random error is memory. Usually it's fixed my just cleaning the contacts with a pencil rubber.

Once I get the lid off the box and the rubber out everything that looks like a contact gets a rub.

Next complete disk check.

Next View event log.

Next load latest video driver from web.

Lack of glue on heat sinks can cause issues

Else reload the program.

The principle is work from the hardware up as it that isn't right nothing you do can be trusted.

Yani

 

wrote in message news:32896@coreldraw.com...
> Best place to start with random error is memory. Usually it's fixed my
> just cleaning the contacts with a pencil rubber.

I agree in re: memory. Whenever I've had random crashes on a machine, and
often it reared its ugly head when in the middle of a game :( it was due to
a bad RAM chip. Fortunately, RAM is cheap. The other culprit I've found is
under-powered power supplies. I had built my own PC and cheaped out with
kind of a no-name power supply. It should have been powerful enough, but it
wasn't putting out the juice it claimed to be. So, went with a name-brand
"true power" power supply and have never bought a lower-end power supply
again.

Lnet:

It's not the RAM. Because I got a replacement PC, basically the same model but a fresh installation. The only difference being that this new install has SP2 rather than SP3. I thought that might be the problem.

2 Replacement PCs with the same problem? They're all the same model computers, but it's unlikely that all the PCs would have badly seated RAM.Also, surely if the problem were with the RAM, Corel PaintShop Pro would also be crashing like crazy.

 

 

I would start by getting my hands on (a, another) video card with at least 128 Meg VRam on it and put it in the PC, along with the latest drivers for it.

If that does not work, then I would suggest unloading your VNC software first, then MS Office suite and see if that makes a difference.

(These are just gut feel solutions to your problem. Bet it is either the Vid Card or its VNC.)

Hugh

The problem is not the computer. I have an AMD Athlon 1700 with 512 Mb or RAM, and CorelDRAW X4 works fine, of course, the problem is the speed.

Things that I'm sure are not causing the problem:

- VNC

- AVG

- Office 2007

- Firefox 3

- Adobe Acrobat 9

- Service Pack 3

 

Things that I have tried:

- Uninstalling above mentioned software.

- Uninstalling Corel and trying again.

- Uninstalling Corel and installing the trial.

- New Corel service pack.

- New PC (provided by IT dept)

- Banging my head off the desk

Crashes occur generally when:

1. Starting up and clicking New. 

2. Saving/Loading.

3. Publishing to PDF

4. Copying/pasting objects to/from clipboard.

5. Opening from Draw, operating, clicking, edit in, and it seems like doing pretty much everything else within Photo Paint.

Over a month now and still no closer to the solution. So I am hereby offering an evening's supply of Guinness to the first man or woman who can figure out what it is.

I have yet to get my hands on a gfx card to see if maybe that works but anyway, two things I might mention while I'm at it.

First the import/open commands seem to be confused. I try import something and it says to open it instead. I go to open it and it says to import it, I go back to import it and it works fine

?!?!? weird.

Also, the printer we have is a rather tempermental and over-worked old Oki colour laser. Though I have uninstalled the drivers for it, just in case, and still no joy.

One other thing I thought of today, though, could it be anything to do with fonts?The guy I'm taking over from. He had X3 installed on his laptop and so in order to work on the material I copied all his fonts over, some of which are Polish language fonts (plus his copy of X3 was in Polish) I'm just mentioning the language, I don't know if it makes any difference, though maybe I copied a corrupt font file into my fonts folder (which might also explain these bizzare "bbox" errors I get when viewing PDFs sometimes) and that's what's causing these weird random crashes.

Any other ideas?

 

 

 

 

Just how many fonts are installed and active on your PC?

Erm - over 800

OK, problem, here. You have way too many fonts installed and they take up too many resources, both in Windows and in many applications.

Create a directory, someplace other than the Windows default font directory. Move all, but the essential Windows default fonts, into the newly created directory. Fire up font Navigator, have it scan for all of your fonts on your system (creat catalog/data base of your fonts on the PC).

Then, from this point on, use Font Nav to install (activate) fonts and uninstall (deactivate) fonts, as you need them for Corel.

Right, I'll do that tomorrow then, first thing.