Question Regarding new LCD monitor

I recieved a new monitor for xmas, Sony SDM - S73 17" LCD, i'm totally new to LCD's, and have poked around different forums to find out some about this monitor, most "professional" sites give it a good bang for the buck rating, seems most tech forums however have negative things to say about this monitor, and sony LCD's in general.

However thats not really my issue, the color on the monitor is good, im satisfied with the performance I have while gaming, however Im having immense trouble in getting the brightness adjusted properly. The screen just seems overly bright, (borderline washout), ive adjusted brightness, contrast, as well as the backlight, and it seems like I can get the whitewash off, but then other colors are too dark, and also at all times along the edges of the screen you can see the backlight shining through, which although isnt a killer is kind of annoying to me.

Now this may just be something I must get use to with LCD's im new to them as I said, always had CRT's before, or is this a issue with the monitor itself, or a User Error. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Have you tried adjusting these settings using the graphics card control program? I am not sure if you even have such controls, but every graphics card I have used for the last few years has one. I currently have a NVIDIA graphics card and I can get to mine by right clicking on the desktop and then clicking on the 'Settings' tab. From there I click on the 'Advanced' button located on the lower right. From there it will depend on what graphics card program you have, in mine I can adjust brightness, vibrance, contrast, and Gamma.

 

Good advice from OR_Mtn_Man there, when I got my first lcd monitor a while ago, think it was a 12" something! the brightness was blinding and there was nothing that could be done. Someone gave me some software to fix it and I'm kicking myself because I just can't think of the name! It was great though, could change everything, even the settings that you would change using the buttons on the monitor itself. If i mind the software I'll post the link...