Cadence Specctra (Allegro Router) 17.2 Issues in Windows 7 Pro (64 bit)

I have seen this behavior when you run the Allegro Router for the first time during an Allegro session, it will remain running in the background until you close the Allegro session even if you are not using it.   I believe this was to allow quicker execution of the black box type of commands that call the Allegro Router. (i.e. Route > PCB Router > Route Net(s) by Pick)   Is this what you are seeing?   I wonder if there is a configuration on the VM that cleans up the suspended processes automatically.

Hi mcatramb91,

Not exactly.  I get the same behavior in Windows 7 whether I start Specctra (Allegro Router) within an Allegro layout session or start Specctra by itself...makes NO difference in that I cannot quit the Specctra application without going to the Windows 7 Task Manager and terminating the Specctra application.

Also, while I am in a Specctra session (with or without Allegro layout running), the operation is slow and "sticky" in that any menu item I use seems to hang for several to 50 seconds!  This tells me that there must be some kind of software driver incompatibility either within Windows 7 or with the Nividia graphics driver with the Specctra application.  Again, as mentioned earlier, NO issues at all in my VMware Workstation Pro virtual machine running Windows 10.

One more thing, I have run Specctra previously in versions 16.2 and 16.6 (same Nividia graphics card) without any issues in Windows 7 and Windows 10, so there is definitely something different about how Specctra in version 17.2 works within Windows 7.

CT

Folks,

Found the problem.  It appears that the latest Nvidia drivers downloaded today seem to have eliminated the problem.  Therefore, it was the previous Nvidia graphics driver that was causing issues with the Specctra program.  That also explains why I did not have the same issue inside a Windows 10 virtual machine as that environment uses a VMware graphics driver.

Hope this helps anybody else that might experience that issue.

CT

Hi Chris

Cadence released an update to V17.2 - HF039 on 5-11-2018. The HF contains fixes for Specctra.

1903081 SPECCTRA           LICENSING     PCB Router is failing in Linux 7.1 in release 17.2-2016
1721606 SPECCTRA           ROUTE            PCB Router stops responding on exit if opened in the stand-alone mode
1844366 SPECCTRA           ROUTE            Allegro PCB Router will not exit
1873716 SPECCTRA           ROUTE            PCB Router does not close if opened from Allegro PCB Editor or in the stand-alone mode

Some of these look to be like the problem you had run into ?

Also on windows I have been using an Nvidia Graphics card NVS-310, not what I would call a high end card. The thing is wierd in that when drawing 0 width lines it sometimes
gets the color wrong believe it or not. Me thinks it is time to go back to AMD. Take a look at the Radeon Pro RX series.. WX 3100 or WX 4100. Pretty good for the $$.

Hope this helps..

Paul.

Hi Paul,

Those symptoms on Specctra were exactly what I was experiencing.  However, though those "fixes" might be the solution, I did find the solution to my issue when I disabled the nViewMain.exe program that automatically loads with any Nvidia driver.  You can go into the Control Panel and disable the nView Desktop Manager from there and the problem gets solved immediately.  Now my Windows 7 host machine runs Specctra perfectly...just like my Windows 10 virtual machine using the SPB 17.2 suite.

Chris