Is Visio stable?

[Linn Kubler]

Hi,

I have a user running Visio 2003 Standard on a Windows XP Pro computer sp2.
She is having a heck of a time with stability on her computer and often it
is when Visio is running. The computer has 2GB of RAM and today she had
Visio open with our org. chart file open, Excel with a workbook and Outlook.
The task manager said she was using over 4GB of RAM and Visio and Excel were
using the bulk of the processor cycles, nothing was responding.

This is the second computer I've given her and I've rebuild this one twice.
I'm at a loss to explain what's happening. No one else in the company is
having these issues but she is the only one running Visio so I'm wondering
if it could be culprit. Any suggestions? Is Visio a stable application,
could it be causing these problems?

Thanks in advance,
Linn

 

[WapperDude]

I've not had any problems with Visio 2003 or Visio 2007. At work I might run
Visio, Outlook, Excel, Power Point, and IE at the same time with no problems.
System is Win XP Pro, SP2 with 1G or RAM. You might want to try the system
yourself with Visio loaded just to verify there's no issues with the system.

Wapperdude

 

[Linn Kubler]

Hi,

Yeah, I've looked at the system, ran diagnostics extensively from the
manufacturer. I can't reproduce the issue at all. This user prides herself
on how fast she can maneuver around and between programs, I kind of wonder
if she isn't her own worst enemy in this case. I recently gave her a new
computer because of these issues and that didn't help. Two computers in a
row with these problems seems suspicious, which is why I'm thinking a
software bug or conflict. Just not sure how to track it down.

Thanks,
Linn

 

[WapperDude]

Of course it's always possible. I don't think there's anything inherent to
Visio to cause an instability. But, hypothetically, your user might be doing
something, perhaps a lot of pasting of pictures, that could drive the Visio
file size up. This might start grabbing memory and CPU usage. Sounds like
both the Visio and Excel files are very large. 4GB of memory is a lot to use
up. Could even be a Windows/PC issue. Too much memory sometimes leads to
erroneous system behavior. Speed is nice, but if there are too many
concurrent activities on the computer, perhaps that's the issue, like a
freeway at rush hour? Unfortunately, I'm not an IT guy and can't really
assist too much.

Perhaps someone else will pick up on this.

 

[AlEdlund]

as an observation from the side, if the system only has 2G installed and the
reported ram being used is 4g you're probably playing with a swap file
issue.
al

 

[Paul Herber]

Hi,

I have a user running Visio 2003 Standard on a Windows XP Pro computer sp2.
She is having a heck of a time with stability on her computer and often it
is when Visio is running. The computer has 2GB of RAM and today she had
Visio open with our org. chart file open, Excel with a workbook and Outlook.
The task manager said she was using over 4GB of RAM and Visio and Excel were
using the bulk of the processor cycles, nothing was responding.

This is the second computer I've given her and I've rebuild this one twice.
I'm at a loss to explain what's happening. No one else in the company is
having these issues but she is the only one running Visio so I'm wondering
if it could be culprit. Any suggestions? Is Visio a stable application,
could it be causing these problems?

Are both computers of the same make, same video card etc?
Visio is heavily dependant upon graphics capability and any video
driver problems may show up as exactly what you are seeing.
So, check for the latest video drivers.
Also try reducing the graphics hardware acceleration, and see if
changing the video screen size or colour depth has any effect, 16-bit
colour may not be ideal but if the problem disappears then it gives a
pointer to where the problem may be.

 

[Linn Kubler]

Yes, I surmized the same thing and I know that once you get swapping that
much data Windows usually crashes.
Linn

 

[Linn Kubler]

Both computers were HP/Compaq's but the original was quite a bit older so I
doubt it the graphics were the same. But it's gone now so no way to
determine that for sure. I'll check into graphics drivers though, I can see
wheer this could be a contributor. These computers have on-board graphics
so I bet they share RAM with the system. Never liked that design.

Thanks,
Linn

 

[WapperDude]

I was looking at a post in Visio Guy's forum, and it made me think about your
problem. According to that post,
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=385.msg1710#new, Visio has a memory
leak. I'm wondering if this might be part of your problem?

Wapperdude

Both computers were HP/Compaq's but the original was quite a bit older so I
doubt it the graphics were the same. But it's gone now so no way to
determine that for sure. I'll check into graphics drivers though, I can see
wheer this could be a contributor. These computers have on-board graphics
so I bet they share RAM with the system. Never liked that design.

Thanks,
Linn