Thomas M. Turner's Tech Ramblings  

I have more information, since my original post about SPSS Syntax Crashing with Hyper-Threading Enabled. The SPSS tech support response I received, when I contacted them about the problem was:

"Thanks for your detailed explanation of the issue as well as your extensive trouble-shooting. I believe you have pinpointed the cause of the crashing. Such a cause is very plausible in that we do not test our products on all computer models. Thus, since turning 'Hyper-Threading' off did not cause the crash when running the SPSS syntax, it would be best to leave it off, if possible. If not, you may have to move the SPSS to another computer (without Hyper-Threading). Unfortunately, there would not be anything we could do besides the workaround that you found."

Not the response I was looking for. Subsequently, I did another search on their support site, to at least see if they put any warning out about Hyper-Threading problems with SPSS and this time I came across this tech article:

Resolution number: 34159 Created on: Sep 5 2003

Product Family: SPSS
Version:
Problem Subject: SPSS crashes on dual processor machines.

Problem Description: I am running a syntax job using SPSS for Windows on a machine with multiple processors. When I run the job, SPSS will either completely shut down or give me the following errors:

The processor has terminated due to an unrecoverable error at...-fetching from...followed by a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library dialog with an Assertion Failed! message.

How can I fix this?

Resolution Subject: SPSS crashes on dual processor machines.

Resolution Description:
There are some SPSS syntax jobs that exemplify this problem on multiple processor machines. As a workaround, you can designate one processor for SPSS to run on. To do this, you'll need to first launch SPSS. Then, go into your Task Manager by pressing -- and go to the Processes tab. Look
for the process named spsswin.exe and right click on it. From here, choose the 'Set Affinity..' menu. Next, you'll see the available CPUs with a check next to it. Uncheck any one of them so that only one CPU stays checked. You should now be able to run your syntax jobs without errors.

Ok, so, apparently SPSS support doesn't think a problem running on SMP systems would also be a problem on systems with Hyper-Threading? While the percentage of users running multiple processors on the desktop is miniscule, systems with Hyper-Threading enabled are going to be the majority in a couple years.

Now, to the workaround, it is more desirable to set the affinity level for spsswin.exe, in Windows XP, than to disable Hyper-Threading in the BIOS. The steps they list are the way you do that, except that it is very annoying to have to do that every time you run SPSS.

Luckily, I came across a program (THG Task Assignment Manager) at one of the best PC hardware review sites, Tom's Hardware Guide, to somewhat simplify the process. It's not exactly what I would want, to totally hide this from the users, but it is better than nothing.

Finally, not related to this problem, but yet another example of SPSS not keeping their software working with the latest hardware and software, in that they are telling SPSS for Mac users to downgrade their OS X systems from version 10.3.4, back to 10.3.3.

Living in the state that is the leader in corn production, I found this article very interesting, albeit it is unfortunate this corn-based CD is not yet ready for the marketplace.

"Sanyo estimates that around 85 corn kernels, each weighing an average of 0.5 grams, are needed to produce enough polymer for a single 4.7-inch optical disc, so an average ear of corn can produce around 10 discs."