IE 7 New Tab/Window fails to open

OK First off "What the heck"?
I've got a couple of computers that have developed a random fault. When I go into IE it works fine, search on google, open pages etc. However when anything tries to open a new window/tab or I right click and do "open in new window/tab" it opens a blank page then hangs trying to load the page. Any page. If I stop the load and hit refresh it loads the pages. If I click on a link and go to the page it loads the page. it's when I tries to open a new window/tab from a link.

So why?

's alright. Find a fix
A new window opened in Internet Explorer displays a blank white page