As a model for the precession-driven motion in the Earth's core, the flow of incompressible fluid inside a spheroidal shell with imposed rotation and precession is investigated by direct numerical simulation. In one set of simulations, free-slip boundary conditions are used in order to isolate inertial instabilities. These occur as triad resonances involving pairs of inertial modes which have the form of columnar vortices. The simulations reproduce the phenomenon of ‘resonant collapses’ in which the excited modes periodically grow and suddenly decay into turbulence. The experiments of Malkus (1968) are simulated using a hyperviscosity. A hysteretic transition towards developed turbulence observed in one of these experiments can be interpreted as a feature of the basic laminar flow rather than the instability itself. A similar transition can be excluded for Earth's parameters.