What happens if you close AIM and then open IE? Also you could try to stop AIM from starting when the computer boots and see how IE reacts.

From the description it sounds like it may be something about the way that AIM is interacting with IE. Of course, I could be totally wrong about that also.

There are alot of possibilities, unfortunately.

Let us know what happens, you can also get me on AIM. catdad2222