Hello

[Scud]

Well the good news is you discovered the problem. That's huge. Next computer, make sure it comes with a dedicated video card if possible.

Your cheapest solution, buy a video card. First, you need to establish what kind of card slots your computer has. Go to the manufacturer's site and look up your model. Some sites might even tell you what cards you could upgrade to for that model, like Dell or Gateway. Older computers will have PCI slots and next came AGP. PCIe and PCI Express x16 came out around the same time as AGP, I believe, or soon after. It's important to know what kind of slots you have, since, if you buy a PCI card, it won't fit in an AGP slot.

If you have both PCI and AGP, opt for AGP. If you have a PCIe slot, get that.

Secondly, make a note of your computer's power supply output. Some cards require more juice than your computer most likely has, I'm guessing <400 watts.

The best news, is that lower end cards are pretty cheap and you're not doing 3D modeling or anything, so you don't need anything high-end. I'd opt for NVIDIA or ATI Radeon, or one of their licensed manufacturers (same cards—different brand names). When I say cheap, I mean under $50 dollars US, even half that.

Installing the card isn't as hard as you think. Figuring out how your computer opens is probably the hardest part. Unplug it. Have a vacuum cleaner handy, it will be filled with dust. Discharge any static electricity your body has built up by touching something metal. Try not to touch chips or capacitors. Unwrap the card from the antistatic container. There will only be a couple of slots where it can go, so you just match the male slots of the card to the matching female slot in the computer and push the card in place (there's often a little locking mechanism which clicks in when the card is fully inserted). Plug your monitor into the card and boot. XP should recognize the card and install a driver. Consider updating the driver to the latest via the card manufacturer's site.

One final note, make sure your monitor has a port on the card, VGA port for VGA monitors, DVI for older digital monitors, HDMI for newer ones. Some cards will have more than one choice.

This all sounds intimidating, but trust me, you can do this and it's kind of fun. Also, completely reversible if you mess up. Tons of how-to's online and even video tutorials on youtube. Check some out before you decide. I'll help you if I can.

Good luck,
Dave