MATLAB: Does MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a) crash when I use SVD, CHOL, LU, EIG, or LEGEND

errorMATLABmllapackmllapack.dllpolyfitprocessor

MATLAB crashes when I use any commands that make use of LAPACK. This includes SVD, CHOL, LU, EIG, and even LEGEND. Here is an code snippet that crashes MATLAB:
plot(1:10);
legend('string1', 'location', 'best');
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 Segmentation violation detected at Fri May 08 12:25:34 2009
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…
Stack Trace:
 [0] mllapack.dll:0x7a65eba3(0x786c945e "]éøÆ", 0x0a9bc520, 0x78d688eb, 0x00c261d9)
 [1] libmwmathlinalg.dll:??$mfSVD@N@@YAXHQAPAUmxArray_tag@@H0@Z(3, 0x00c26388 "ÐÓn\n În\n°Æn\n", 0x01000002 "tx ", 0x00c26200 "@Ôn\nxÅi\nHb") + 763 bytes
 [2] libmwmathlinalg.dll:void __cdecl mfFullSVDFcn(int,struct mxArray_tag * * const,int,struct mxArray_tag * * const)(3, 0x00c26388 "ÐÓn\n În\n°Æn\n", 2, 0x00c26418) + 171 bytes
 [3] m_dispatcher.dll:public: virtual void __thiscall Mfh_builtin::dispatch_mf(int,struct mxArray_tag * *,int,struct mxArray_tag * *)(3, 0x00c26388 "ÐÓn\n În\n°Æn\n", 2, 0x00c26418) + 92 bytes
 [4] m_dispatcher.dll:public: virtual void __thiscall Mfh_MATLAB_fn::dispatch_fh(int,struct mxArray_tag * *,int,struct mxArray_tag * *)(3, 0x00c26388 "ÐÓn\n În\n°Æn\n", 2, 0x00c26418) + 193 bytes
 [5] m_interpreter.dll:private: void __thiscall accelImpl::MatfcnMxArray(void)(0x00c26f9c, 0x00c26f88 "Tr", 0, 0) + 523 bytes
 [6] m_interpreter.dll:public: bool __thiscall accelImpl::ExecInline(void)(0x00c26f88 "Tr", 0xffffffff, 0x0ba4dca8, 0x0c01ee48) + 248 bytes
 [7] m_interpreter.dll:public: enum jitReturnFlags __thiscall accelImpl::E

Best Answer

The crash is caused by an incompatibility between MATLAB and the CPU. This can happen if the processor does not support the SSE2 instruction set, for example, the Athlon XP 2200+ CPU.
As noted in the System Requirements page (URL below), the processor must support the SSE2 instruction set.
http://www.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/current_release/
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