I'm having a problem when I run a long 3D milling operation (over 30 minutes). My PC will lock up and not send signals to my machine. I have to reboot and start cutting all over. I found if I periodically interact with the PC during the cutting operation (such as changing screens or moving the mouse) I don't get a lockup. Can someone point me to the likely problem?

Do you have onboard graphics or a seperate video card?

Brett

The PC registers there is no activity. It does this by looking at the mouse or the keyboard. If you are running a program it sees this as a period of inactivity and tries to put the screen saver on.

Get into the "Screen" and put the screen saver time up as far as you can go. There is also a similar thing for Stand By mode. Mach 3 has a mechanism for preventing the computer from going into stand-by mode, but sometimes the two conflict. Try and turn that off as well.

I have a separate video card.

I'll give that a try. Thanks for the quick response!

Jims right. Look at the optimisation instructioins in the downloads section. Also, might try turning off the tool path (can turn it off on the diagnostics page, under the tool path window) but with a separate video card, shouldn't be a problem.

Yes, go with the optimization instructions (change to standard PC mode), this has save me from heart failure at LEAST once! lol!