diff --git a/src/test/recovery/t/026_overwrite_contrecord.pl b/src/test/recovery/t/026_overwrite_contrecord.pl
index d451fe6b224..dc5880d40af 100644
--- a/src/test/recovery/t/026_overwrite_contrecord.pl
+++ b/src/test/recovery/t/026_overwrite_contrecord.pl
@@ -19,10 +19,13 @@ plan tests => 3;
 
 my $node = PostgresNode->get_new_node('primary');
 $node->init(allows_streaming => 1);
-# We need these settings for stability of WAL behavior.
+# We need these settings for stability of WAL behavior.  checkpoint_timeout
+# avoids noise from checkpoint activity, and autovacuum is disabled to avoid
+# any WAL activity generated by it.
 $node->append_conf(
 	'postgresql.conf', qq(
 autovacuum = off
+checkpoint_timeout = '30min'
 wal_keep_size = 1GB
 ));
 $node->start;