Not sure where to put this, a bit of Hardware and Software.

I have a 5 year old LCD monitor, and it's contrast and brightness settings don't go very high, making it hard to view darker images and STUFF. All the settings are maxed out, so is there a way of increasing contrast further in software?

Onboard Video
Windows XP SP2
AMD Athlon 1600
224mb RAMThe only thing i can suggest at this time would be to borrow a video card that your machine supports and SEE if there is any improvement over the onboard video...
This will let you know if it's the monitor itself or whether it would be worth investing in a card.
256 is a bit light for RAM on an XP system...you might consider bumping that up.Might be. Depends on your software. Go to Display Properties, Settings, and click on Advanced. Click on the tab with the name of your display adapter and search for a brightness setting.

I have a brightness CONTROL option in my nVidia software.

Edit: just saw patio's post. I agree your options might be more limited with onboard video.Try using your onboard video's driver control panel to adjust the settings.
Most of them do have some SORT of control hidden there somewhere - do you know what make your onboard video is?