my friends moniter is really dark. on the desktop it looks ok. but when i play like a vid or play a game its dark as ****. the settings on the moniter ar at max (meaning brightness and contrast) and i cant find any gamma settings in the control panel. how do i make it brighter?

o yea, he has win xp and there is some intel extreme graphics thing for his card....

It might be that xp used its own drivers for the graphics, try to install the drivers from the manufacturer, or you need a better monitor that can support the graphics.