Problem: when I use “Update PCB from Schematic” for the 1st time after starting KiCad the program locks up for several minutes. All other Win programs continue tu run normally while I’m waiting. Eventually Kicad comes back to life. After that I can endlessly go back and forth between editing and updating PCB and schematic w/o any noticeable delays. Looks like KiCad is loading lots of data from my SSD (!) when I update my PCB for the first time. I understand that an update can’t be done w/o the data, but it would be nice if KiCad would continue to respond while waiting. A progress bar and a line of text telling me what’s happening would also help me not to loose my temper ;-). In fact, it would be even nicer (and smarter) if KiCad would load the data in the background immediately after starting - anticipating that there is a fair chance that those data will be needed sooner or later.
While I’m working on a design I usually have Spotify running. On rare occasions the music will stutter when KiCad needs processing power, but that happens very rarely.
It is indeed an old processor with a passmark rating of 2990 but a lockup of several minutes is still ridiculous. KiCad should be plenty usable on a system of that age.
My previous PC was of similar speed, and it got a bit slowish when working on the Olimexino A64 (I often use that as a benchmark), but there were no startup problems. I think it took 15 to 20s to load that project.
The time it takes to Update PCB from Schematic [F8] also depends on the complexity of the project. How big is that project? Is it also so slow with another project?
Thanks for looking into this issue. To be sure I timed the lock-up again (waiting for 30 secs in front of a computer screen seems like forever). Turns out to be about 4 minutes. Did another run, this time with the WIN taskmanager open to get an idea what the hell is going on. While opening the PCB update function KiCad is using only 20..25% CPU time and disk usage rarely exceeds 10%. But I noticed that the (Windows built-in) virusscanner (antimalware executable) is eating most of my CPU time while KiCad is loading the PCB update stuff.
Tried again, this time with WIN defender disabled. Now it only takes a few seconds to do the same thing. For some reason KiCad appears to be triggering the WIN virusscanner. I don’t get any warnings from WIN that there may be a security risk. It’s just eating my CPU time ;-((.
I now exclude the KiCad folders for the WIN virusscanner. Helps a lot. The virusscanner is still taking a peek every now and then, but the lock-up is down from about 4 minutes to less than 20 seconds (despite that my CPU is not a high–end performer ).
Just to be clear: I’m not using another virusscanner on my machine, only Windows defender - which is otherwise doing a good job.
BTW: the design is very very simple: just a custom IR sensor component, two barrel power connectors, an ATtiny85 and a few passive components.. That’s it.
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