Programs Freezing Temporarily - Everything Else Remains Operational

Ever since I've built this computer, I have failed to figure out where this small problem is coming from. Here is an example: I will be browsing the internet and all of a sudden (whatever task I tell the browser to do) will freeze, while everything else remains operational (mouse, other programs, etc.). After about 10 secs average, it resumes what it is doing. Now this goes the same for any other program I am in, for instance: my game that I play will freeze up temporarily, and i can alt-esc to return to windows and everything is still fine there but the game is still froze, after about 10-20secs, its resumes what it is doing. Unsure if this is just a driver issue or a hardware conflict.