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 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
