As I’ve been progressing through various projects at home, I have a few 3D printing projects that I would like to tackle. With that, I needed to learn how to design models to print. This has led me down a bit of a long road, and I’m still not done….
What to use?
A colleague of mine who does a fair amount of 3D printing suggested the personal use version of Autodesk’s Fusion360. With my home laptop running a pretty fresh version of Windows 11, I figured it would be worth a shot. He pointed me to a set of Youtube tutorials for learning Fusion360 in 30 Days, so I got started.
I pretty promptly locked up my machine… In doing some simple rendering (no materials, no complex build/print patterns), my machine simply locked up into a lovely pinstripe pattern. This persisted after following all of Autodesk’s recommendations, including a fresh install of Fusion360.
Downgrading!
Knowing that some or all of the devices on the laptop may not have appropriate Windows 11 drivers, I made the decision to re-install Windows 10 and stay there. It’s a little painful, as I have gotten somewhat used to the quirks of 11, but I want to be able to draw!
So I installed Windows 10 fresh, got all the latest updates (including the AMD Pro software), and tried Fusion360 again. I got paste where I locked up in Windows 11, and actually got to Day 8 of the tutorials. And then the lockups came back.
A small hiccup on my part
I may have gotten a little impatient, and simultaneously uninstalled the AMD drivers while installing some other drivers, and I pretty much made my machine unbootable… So, I am in the process of re-installing Windows 10 and applying all the latest updates.
As part of this, however, I am going to take things a TOUCH slower. I had Fusion360 running pretty smoothly up until my Day 8 lesson, but I also installed Windows Subsystem Linux between my Day 7 and Day 8 lessons. And while I truly hope this isn’t the case, I am wondering if something in WSL is causing issues with Fusion360…
So I’m going to take my machine back to the same state it was in, minus the WSL install, to see if I get the same lockups in Fusion360. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Update – 9/18/2023
I got everything re-installed, including drivers for my GPU, but it is still locking up. However, there is some added information: I got it to lock up outside of Fusion360 in the same way.
I searched a number of online forums, and the suggestions seem to center around a dying GPU… Doh! So, I have a few options:
- Build a new system….
- Fix this one.
I do not like the idea of time/money spent on a new system, especially when the specs on this laptop are more than sufficient for what I need. I found a replacement GPU today for under $100, so it is on its way. I took a peek at the installation video and I am not looking forwards to a full disassemble, but it will allow me to clean out the drives, reset the heat sinks, and hopefully solve the GPU issue.
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