hyperthreading locks up sleeping threads

[OlafMeding at gmail.com]

This is an update on what we found so far:

We located one other PC that was not identical to the PC with the
problem.  So we installed Windows XP on it and ran the Python test
program.  It ran fine all night w/o locking up.

Here is what winmsd reports for this PC:
winmsd:
OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Processor: x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~3600Mhz
Processor: x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~3600Mhz

Okay so this together with what others reported on in this newsgroup
leads to the conclusion that the problem is with the specific software
or hardware configuration of our PC.

So to make sure that no other software is involved we took the PC with
the problem, reset the BIOS to its defaults (which also enables
hyper-threading) and installed Windows XP Professional (SP2) on it (but
no further driver software, etc).  We accepted all defaults during the
installation.

Once Windows XP was running we installed Python downloaded from (and
accepted all defaults during the installation):
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.4.3/python-2.4.3.msi

And we then ran our Python test program and it hung after less than 15
minutes!

We are now contacting the company that puts that PC together for
further advice.

Olaf