New MBP seems to be sticking

This is my first mac so I wanted to see if this was normal but doesn't like like it should be.

New 2.4 Duo MBP seems to be sticking every so often. I get the spinning pinwheel and the machine seems to lock up for what seems to be a long - long time (usually 1-3 minutes). This happens about every other time I use the machine and if it happens once I can count on it happening 3 more times during that session.

Any suggestions?

thanks

It could be a number of things, memory errors, hard drive problems, etc. I don't even know what I would do in a case like this... What programs are you running when this happens?