ORCAD PSpice 16.6 cannot simulate diode circuit properly

Question

I am currently panicking slightly because I need PSpice to work properly so I can simulate some diode circuits for my upcoming lab. However, what is happening is that when I try to run the circuit below, PSpice will simulate it once correctly (and show the output graph) with the simulation settings, and then if I change the simulation settings and try to re-run it, PSpice won't open the simulation. Sometimes the simulation fails with an argument error and a can't find error right after. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is what I'm trying to simulate:

Where Vin is VSIN with 3V amplitude and 1000Hz, no offset. The diode we are using is the D914 (starts with a D, has the number 914 in it). The capacitor is 22uF, and R_L is 5k ohms. When I run simulate this without the capacitor PSpice seems to work correctly, but if I add the capacitor, it seems to only simulate once, and then not work correctly after that, or the simulation will just crash.

This is what I have in PSpice itself for this circuit with the above values:

Answer 1

Try adding a ground node (see left side):

^{simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab}

The netlist would be something like:

R1 N2 0 5k

C1 N2 0 22µ

D1 N1 N2 1N914

V1 N1 0 SINE(0 3 1000)

Just note the use of 0 for ground.

EDIT: Okay. So you are using a ground. That's good. There is often a parameter to let you arbitrarily connect every node to ground via a high impedance value (GMIN.) But I don't know how you'd access it in your simulator. So lacking that, try the schematic on the right side, now, as shown above.