Some applications freezing up

[Daniel Dalton <d.dalton@iinet.net.au>]

Hello, 

When I launch some applications from within gnome 3 mainly rhythmbox and
gmpc the following occurs:
* The fan goes to pull speed. 
* The desktop is locked up for about a minute 
* After about a minute the fan slows back down and the desktop is no
longer frozen allowing me to use these programs. 

Does anyone have some ideas why this might be occurring and how to fix
it?

Basically I can't use rhythmbox or gmpc unless I'm happy to wait a
minute first for the desktop to become unfrozen. 

I'm also using debian wheezy. 

Thanks in advance. 

Dan