I was wondering: what if I try another monitor? I think this one is asking for retirement, cause when I'm doing normal stuff, like posting this reply, it keeps flashing. It's like, it get almost all white, then it slowly comes back to it's normal. Ideas?

Frankly I'm suprised you could stand 1024x768 this long.....

For my personal computer I've had a 21" since 2001?.

1024 is way too limiting. Grab a 22" off of newegg for about $160.

If you want/need a faster panel then you'll have to pay more but a cheap semi-decent LCD is probably better than your current CRT.

Just be aware that if you get an LCD with a higher native res then if you want to play games at that res then you'll need a card powerful enough to play the games at that res (or you could run at a non-native res which may not be too bad depending on the monitor/video card).