[DM-MUG] rainbow wheels in itunes

[Darcy Baston]

While using iTunes, I keep having an  unresponsive app about ever 10  
seconds. It's like clockwork. Every fixed interval, everything halts,  
song playback stutters, and a rainbow wheel appears from 1 to 3   
seconds. When iTunes isn't the front most app, song playback is  
uninterrupted. But when it has the focus...watch out.

The app won't come to the front during its pauses, but the click is  
queued so as soon as iTunes is listening again, it jumps to the front  
like asked.

I've been watching activity monitor during these pauses, and cpu usage  
spikes from ~15% to ~60%.

It started doing this with Leopard.

Any ideas?

Darcy

(Macbook 2.16, 2GB memory, 10.5.1)