ie9 win7 2nd window opens blank/spinning

When clicking on a link in the first Internet Explorer window (happens in IE8 and IE9) the second window opens "blank" and the cursor is spinning. Never starts to fill the page. I thought maybe it was direct2d from any of the talking software, but web searches all point to Mozilla Firefox and not IE9. I unintalled all talking programs. No luck. I've tried uninstalling IE9 (which is how I know it also happens on IE8) still happens. Reinstalling IE9 doesn't fix the problem... This is happening on two computers - a laptop and a desktop.