A few days ago I found a problem in ngspice where a MAXIM opamp model would not run properly but a simple netlist *with the same lines in it that caused a problem in the MAXIM model* would run OK.
So I posted a question in the ngspice users mailing list:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=31588607
it shows the problem and my request for help. Further down the page, the reply suggests that it is a known bug in ngspice and has been fixed but not yet released.
Maybe you don't need to read the whole post and the netlists that go with it (the MAXIM model is big!).
What is more important to think about is how ngspice may be updated in EE because this bug in ngspice breaks some of the MAXIM opamp models.
I do not know how many model may be broken by this but the way MAXIM have written the macromodel it looks like it may be used in a similar form for several other devices.