Windmill on the screen

Question

Windmill on the screen

The last few days I've notice the windmill which is seen during shutdown and startup is showing up on my monitor at odd times.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69467986@N00/4289327033/

Any idea why this may be happening?

TIA

Jerry

MacPro Quad-Core 3 GH/MBP 2.5GHz 15", Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Jan 19, 2010 10:15 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 19, 2010 10:38 PM in response to baltwo

That's the spinning gear, not windmill, and it usually indicates that the OS is checking mounted volumes. Ignore it, it's normal.

Thanks! But, I'm still concerned.
Spinning gear or windmill? Whatever! It's just shown up on my desktop and I'd like to know why. It's pretty hard to ignore when it shows up right in front of my face and it's never been there before except at shut down or start.

Jerry

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jan 19, 2010 10:49 PM in response to Gerald Gifford

Launch Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities/, set it to show all processes, and see what kicks in when it appears. Not having access to your machine, it's impossible to determine what you have installed that's causing the issue. Likely culprits are Spotlight indexing and Time Machine.

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jan 19, 2010 10:23 PM in response to Gerald Gifford

That's the spinning gear, not windmill, and it usually indicates that the OS is checking mounted volumes. Ignore it, it's normal.

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