My iMac has a bizarre freezing problem---can anyone help?

Frequently these days, my machine will freeze---
---the mouse and cursor won't work.
---the keyboard won't respond.
However, during these freezes, iTunes will still play, and my screensaver/wallpaper will eventually kick in, so at least some part of the computer works.
When I hit the restart switch, the machine will go all the way through startup, to the login screen, but most of the time, the mouse/cursor will still be frozen, and I will not be able to login using the keyboard.
Usually I will have to hit the switch again, and the same thing will happen. Frozen cursor, nonresponsive keyboard at login screen.
The only time I seem to get a full restart, with everything working, is when I hit the switch a third time, or else leave the machine shut down for a few minutes and then restart. I have no idea why this is the case
My HD has about 2 GB of space available out of the 38 or so, and I have not received any disk space warnings, so I don't think that's the cause.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks,
Danny

Since everything else appears to function normally during these "freezes" I'm led to believe that the problem is related to either your USB ports, or your USB keyboard/mouse. The first thing you can try is connecting the devices to different USB ports. Secondly, are you using the included Apple keyboard and mouse, or third party devices? If you're using third party devices, I'd suggest turning the computer off, and connecting your Apple devices, then continuing to use the computer as normal. If the mouse/keyboard continue to freeze, it sounds as though the USB ports may not be working correctly. But, let us know what happens after trying these suggestions.
--Trav

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