I've closed Firefox to open IE to post this comment but I am not aware (facetiousness warning) of how many comments I failed to see over the years because they were posted in IE and didn't appear here.
I then re-read your post, jackt, and realised you refer to IE9 and I only use XP so you may wish to ignore my response if you wish.
Running win7 ie9, no problems commenting on tom's hardware though i do have problems on Tom's guide when there’s a news feed directing there which i need to click on the compatibility button first before posting.
might be because I’ve already pressed the button once awhile ago that tomshardware is working for me as it remembers to view the site in compatibility mode. Until the site is updated and the browser can identify as version 9 compliant it will remain on and will automatically turn off (button will disappear, icon beside the search bar looks like paper with a rip in the middle) when it is.
[strike]Funny though, it doesn’t remember in toms guide, having to click compatibility every time which is confusing, but can deal with it.[/strike] Nevermind it does seen the site in the compatibilty list, tested and works.