[Evolution] evolution causes disk to spin constantly

[John Stile <john stilen com>]

At some point (could be 1 to 10 minutes) after starting evolution, the
hard disk starts spinning constantly, nic and hub blink constantly, and
vmstat shows lots of data sent to block device (bo column).  The program
will continue until I get a message that it can't contact the server, or
I kill it, but it will stay this way for hours.

Can someone tell me what might be happening?

I ran Evolution with strace, and when it starts the behavior described
above, these are the lines that rush buy over and over. 


gettimeofday({1147142011, 778175}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=10, 
events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=22, events=POLLIN}, {fd=18, events=POLLIN}, {fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 7, 0) = 0
write(3, "\n\4\2\0\271\0 \0025\30\4\0\243\340!\2\315\322!\2\1\2\26"..., 1800) = 1800
ioctl(3, FIONREAD, [0])                 = 0
gettimeofday({1147142011, 782346}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=10, 
events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=22, events=POLLIN}, {fd=18, events=POLLIN}, {fd=20, events=POLLIN, 
revents=POLLIN}], 7, 284448) = 1
gettimeofday({1147142012, 101912}, NULL) = 0
read(20, "\0", 1)                       = 1
ioctl(3, FIONREAD, [0])                 = 0
gettimeofday({1147142012, 102345}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=10, 
events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=22, events=POLLIN}, {fd=18, events=POLLIN}, {fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 7, 0) = 0
write(3, "\n\4\2\0\271\0 \0025\30\4\0\250\340!\2\315\322!\2\1\2\26"..., 1800) = 1800
ioctl(3, FIONREAD, [0])                 = 0
gettimeofday({1147142012, 105298}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=10, 
events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=22, events=POLLIN}, {fd=18, events=POLLIN}, {fd=20, events=POLLIN, 
revents=POLLIN}], 7, 284124) = 1
gettimeofday({1147142012, 306995}, NULL) = 0
read(20, "\0", 1)                       = 1
ioctl(3, FIONREAD, [0])                 = 0
gettimeofday({1147142012, 307425}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLIN}, {fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=10, 
events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=22, events=POLLIN}, {fd=18, events=POLLIN}, {fd=20, events=POLLIN}], 7, 0) = 0
write(3, "\n\4\2\0\271\0 \0025\30\4\0\255\340!\2\315\322!\2\1\2\26"..., 1800) = 1800
ioctl(3, FIONREAD, [0])                 = 0
gettimeofday({1147142012, 309538}, NULL) = 0