IE hangs when applet closed - need to use taskman

Question

I am fairly new to java and have been working on an application that interfaces a commercially available webserver with a 8 bit microcontroller. The micro communicates with the webserver via RS-232 but the applet gets the info through ethernet.
My problem is that when the applet is waiting for data using the following code, if the browser is closed(IE) IE hangs and requires using the taskman to terminate the program. If the browser is closed in any other condition it shuts down normally. What can I do to get this process to terminate correctly?
Thanks in advance.
while ( (gtp != null) && (count <= 42) ) {     
      if (gtp.available() > 0){
     in = gtp.receive();
     // store received board disc status bytes
          for (i = 0; i < in.length; i++) {
               if (board[count] != in[i]-48)
                    iMove_loc = count;     
               board[count] = in[i]-48;
               count = count +1;          
}

Answer 1

That's a very tight loop, hogging the CPU all the while. Time for a redesign, to be sure, to get it to be 'notified' when data is available rather than polling like that. Or at least throttle down the polling quite a bit by introducing sleeps.
Also, I hope that loop is in a separate thread from the applet's main thread.
When you shut down IE, the applet's stop/destroy methods will be called - at which point you should 'notify' the code being executed in that loop that it's time to get out.