Laptop has heartbeat; freezes every 2 seconds!

[Error 404]

Well, I know my laptop isn't the fastest of computers, but I'm pretty sure of one thing; it shouldn't completely freeze every 2 seconds! :mad:
My OS is Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu 7.10), and when I have pretty much anything running the laptop starts to go into a beat; the CPU usage spikes every two seconds, and between the spike it is idle.
Everything locks up completely at peak usage for about half a second, and I dont know what is causing it!
Does anyone know what could be a large resource hog in Linux?

[From_Nowhere]

Beat as in the laptop is bouncing up and down on the table: Check for a frog, a beating human heart, or a mouse that may have found its way into it.

Beat as in odd CPU Usage: Did you install/update any new programs or devices lately? Probably something their messing things up.

[Error 404]

lol, CPU usage beat.
I've recently installed some window managers, so I'll try removing them; I dont like them anyway.

[Easy Rhino]

sounds like a hardware problem, not a software problem.

[xfire]

Does your's have something like speed step or cool n quite?

[Error 404]

It has speedstep, I think. Its a Pentium III mobile, 850 MHz. 512 MB RAM.
I've installed XFCE, which is a less resource instensive WM, which seems to be running much faster.
Gnome might have been slowing everything down a fair bit.

[xfire]

Why don't you try puppy for this too?

[thoughtdisorder]

Sorry to say it, but kinda sounds like the drive might be crapping out on you. Hopefully not, but it sounds like what happened to my last lappy right before the drive died. Just to be sure, might want to get any important files, pics, etc, onto a disk for good measure.

[Error 404]

@ xfire; Puppy doesn't have the features that I need; I know its fast, but the apps are a little "underpowered" in my opinion. XFCE is still quite fast.

@ thoughdisorder; my hard drive is probably going to fail sometime soon, due to the strange noises its been making (think "clipCLACK!"), so I'm saving up for a new one!

Am I able to remove GNOME now that I have XFCE installed? It would free up some more space on my hard drive.

[xfire]

yup remove gnome through synaptic.

[Error 404]

Cool; should I remove the libs as well?

[thoughtdisorder]

Cool; should I remove the libs as well?

Yep......

[Error 404]

Ok. I've removed Gnome, but come across a problem (surprisingly :rolleyes:).
Usually, there is a Main Menu control in Settings which allowed me to choose whatever I wanted to appear in the XFCE Main Menu.
Its gone. :(

Does anyone know what it was called, or how to edit the menu another way (except for Menu Editor, that is useless)?