New MacBook Pro with 10.6.3 Freezes for 5-10 minutes every few days

I've got a brand new (i7 processor) MacBook Pro with 10.6.3 OS on it. Right from the first day I had it, it has had a problem freezing for 5 - 10 minutes every few days. When it is "frozen" nothing works - cursor doesn't track the mouse, clock doesn't increment to a new minute, nothing updates on the screen.
I turned on remote login, so I can ssh to it and see what's going on, and by running "top -o cpu" I can see that the kernel_task process is using over 100% of the CPU - other processes are getting some cycles - top, for instance - but the kernel is dominating the dispatch queue.
When this first happened, I thought the computer was dead, so I powered off and rebooted. However, once I could see that things were still running but the display was locked up, I tried waiting. Sure enough, every time the system comes back if I wait long enough. When it comes back, everything operates just fine.
Any thoughts on what I can do about this? I don't imagine that killing the kernel_task is a good idea(!). Maybe sending it an appropriate signal? I'm happy to get some more diagnostic information - just give me suggestions on what I can try. Note that it will have to be command line only, as I can only ssh into the laptop when it gets frozen like this.
Thanks.
Message was edited by: inquisitive7

Interesting - but that poster is complaining about the mouse and keyboard being unresponsive or going dead, not the comprehensive freeze I'm experiencing (unless "go haywire" means freezing). Not only are my mouse and keyboard unresponsive, but windows on the screen stop updating - even the clock in the upper right corner stops advancing.
For the record, I'm using the keyboard in the MBP - not much choice there - and a Razer bluetooth mouse that had no problems with my last MBP.
Still, they could be related. Something is making the kernel get very busy for a long time before it recovers. I just wish I knew what that was AND how it eventually recovers - perhaps I can accelerate the recovery if I knew the cause.
Anybody else experiencing the same thing? Note - I don't get a beachball and there is no cursor flashing (unlike the other thread on freezing). It looks like the system is completely hung, except that I can still ssh into the MBP and run things like top; overall, the CPU is over 70% idle.
Message was edited by: inquisitive7

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