Freezing up hard, when attempting to print web-pages...

Del Demension 4100/733mhz;386 Mb Ram
Hewlett Packard DeskJet 952c
IE 6.0.2600

Just out of the blue, my system freezes HARD when-ever I attempt to print a web-site page. NotePad, Word 2000, etc. all print documents fine. This problem just came out of no-where.

What if anything you know of, could cause it to freeze like this?

When continue on with CTRL+ALT+DEL, after a short(?)delay the 'close box' comes up, and it says "spool32-not responding ". When I 'end task' on it, the system freezes up hard, including the mouse.
After restarting the system, I'm asked if I want to print the 'pending print jobs', which if I click'yes' it says it cannot anyway!

Are web pages & content changing these days, so that maybe I need a newer driver? Any settings I might change in IE 6.0 that might be culprit?

Anyone having anything remotely like this happen to them, I'd love to hear from you, and any suggestions, or advice I'd appreciate much!
Feel free to ask for further imfo, if you think you have any thoughts or ideas....

Bruce

PS: Worth mentioning, I recently reinstalled Win98 SE on a brand-new HD, on this system, using the original software/drivers from the HP CD-Rom. I have printed imformation from web-sites that are strictly 'text' just fine, it seems. (ie: mutual fund prospectus)