Monitor brightness?

I have had this problem for a long time but have never done anything about it but now I would really like it fixed. Ok so my monitor is really crappy and really old I don't know the brand and it just says DSX Power Series on the front, I am using the plug and play monitor driver from Win98SE (my operating system). I also have a crappy video card which is an ATI Rage 128 VR. The problem is that the brightness for my monitor is far too low even though I have the brightness and contrast nobs turned up to maximum. I have gone into the display adaper properties and adjusted the colour curve and brightness but it still doesn't look right. I am sort of confident the problem is the monitor and not the vid card because my previous monitor ran fine with the Rage 128. I have no documentation for the monitor. Does someone know any solutions?

Note: My vid card has the latest drivers. I have tried various Gamma adjusting programs but apart from making things too bright they don't work.

 

I'd say this is a problem with the monitor. Monitors certainly don't last forever. You could try updating the driver for your specific monitor...but normally that only helps with resolution...not brightness which is controlled by the monitor itself.