Is this a new problem? Were things working OK before? Any new hardware or software?

You can try to trace the errors or else go ahead & repair OE:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378/EN-US/

Look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue.

Also view your Error Log via:
[1] Start Menu
[2] Help and Support
[3] Pick a Task
[4] Tools
[5] Advanced System Information
[6] View the Error Log