Ubuntu :: File Operations Take 15 To 30 Seconds?

Sometimes while using Open Office, trying to open a file the dialog box takes 15 to 30 seconds of spinning balls until it shows me anything. Then changing a directory takes another 15 to 30 seconds. Visual feedback on selections take several seconds, and often I find myself a couple of subdirectories down from where I wanted to go due to caching of unacknowledged clicks.

My system is usually very, very fast, as one would expect from the specs. This problem happened, well, almost all the time with kernel 2.6.32-21-generic, now it just started happening again with 2.6.32-22-generic.During these slowdowns, opening Dolphin reveals the same problem, exceedingly slow response. While this is happening, top shows the system is not busy, and the hard disk light is not flashing. Idle is over 90% and user and sys are basically nothing. The system is basically doing nothing while making me wait.