I have never heard of this one but I doubt that there is a setting in IE that will correct your problem. Standby in Win98 has been troublesome on some computer configurations. I suggest you not use it but instead try suspend of the monitor and hardrive for XX amount of minutes. (XX = is whatever you like). This is found by RIGHT clicking the desktop and choosing PROPERTIES and then the Screen Saver tab. There is a button at the bottom that says Settings... Choose a time for the monitor and the hardrive leaving the others at "Always On" and "Never".
You might want to try the Internet Explorer Repair Tool by going to the Control Panel, ADD/REMOVE Programs Icon and then highlight "MicroSoft Internet Explorer" and click the ADD/REMOVE button. This should give you some choices one of which should be "Repair Internet Explorer". Maybe, and this is just a guess, that a shared .dll or somthing is not unloading properly and hanging yout IE.