System Preferences Freezes

I'm a pretty recent Mac convert, having purchased the 17" MacBook Pro in the summer so I'm still getting used to everything. Hope this is the right place to post this question.

The problem is that in System Preferences, when I click "Keyboard & Mouse" it just hangs. It says "Loading Keyboard & Mouse..." at the top but nothing ever happens. I eventually have to do CMD Opt Esc and close it (though it doesn't actually say Not Responding or whatever when I do).

Can anyone help me figure out how to solve this?

Thanks

try fixing permissions... if that dont work zap pram also.

And if you do zap the PRAM, holding down Option ALT (the one with the apple logo on it) P and R all at the same time after chome and keep all held down until after second chime.

On release machine should boot as per normal.