Video monitor problem ?

I was running a G450, and I installed a Hauphague(sp?)
TV / video capture pci card in the same system. Seemed
to work ok for a while, but I noticed a strange darkening
of the TV image when I had that running. Problem seemed to get slowly worse,
and I corrected it by knobing up the Video monitor brightness and contrast
control, to get it in range with the same controls in the
TV program, so I could get decent brightness. I'm also
a gamer, and since the newer 3D games don't run well
on the G450, I bought an ATI RADEON 9000. Games
ran much better, but then I really noticed the darkening
effect. However, I could knob up the brightness, gamma,
and contrast in that cards settings to an acceptable or
even too bright level ... ??? ... weird. So I cut back
the controls on the video monitor, and used the ATI
to control desktop and game brightness. Now what
I notice is that when I first boot the system .. at the
DOS startup screens, the video brightness is very very
dim to the point that I can barely read it. It almost looks
like the video monitor subbrightness has been set too
far down. I did not know that could be adjusted from
outside the monitor. I though that was a technician
control, adjustable with a screwdriver only ?? And
I can find no way in software or the BIOS to correct
that. Does anybody have any idea what is going on
here? How did these cards cut my video startup
brightness nearly off?

johns

Have you completely ruled out a problem with your monitor? Sometimes a
failing
CRT will exhibit the symptoms you mentioned.

No. But this is the strangest "fail" I ever saw. I'm an
e-tech. I repair monitors .. or at least I can. I just
remember that one of my fun things to do was
crap out my CS professors monitor with my Borland
BGI code. He made us submit our code on floppies,
and, well, that was fun :-) I could turn his screen pink
and green, and only a reboot would fix that. So, I'm
fairly sure that some stinking program I've got is doing
this. I just can't spot it, and it is getting to the BIOS
level of either the video card, or the mobo ???
I also vaguely remember that there is an input pin
on the vga connector that ( might ) control brightness.
VGA is totally analog, and things like that are controlled
by voltage levels entirely. What I need is two computers
so I can swap parts. Wife says no!

johns