Hi, My kernel is Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 #1 Thu Jun 2 22:55:56 EDT 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux. I have been running it for a long time . My file system is ext3. Whenver i compile a program or untar a file like gcc , all the songs that i am playing stops for around 2 secs . Even bash doesn't respond for 2 secs. I have 3 Ghz Cpu and 1 GB of RAM and my harddisk is pretty fast. Throughout the 2 secs i can see the harddisk light green. It is accessing the harddisk. I tried hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc. I don't know why but in windows i don't have that problem . I think earlier (about a year ago )i had debian , i never had this problem. Can you help. Regards Nik