Re: mysterious disk access every 5 or 10 seconds

[smandal mit edu]

>  After I log in
> to gnome desktop, without doing anything else, the
> disk LED flashes every 5 or 10 (not 5 to 10, it is
> either 5 or 10) seconds.  

I had the same problem.  I was determined to fix it because the 
noise from my 7200 RPM drive led to trouble falling asleep.  I 
determined that it was netscape when it was on a page with an 
animated GIF (ad banners and the ilk).  Now, when I log off of my 
dialup account, I make sure that I leave netscape on a page with 
static images, or shutdown netscape altogether.

You probably would have figured out something so obvious by now.  
Try searching for applications that have animated figures/icons or 
would have some other reason to swap pixmap data in and out of 
display buffers.

Good luck.

Regards,

Sourav Mandal

------------------------------------------------------------
Sourav K. Mandal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Physics
http://web.mit.edu/smandal/www/

"In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than
efflorescence of language. We must be simple, 
precise, terse."

                      -- Edgar Allan Poe, 
                        "The Poetic Principle"