Strange Rendering of Images in IE, Windows

I've had this computer for around three years now and one very annoying problem has persisted despite all the upgrades and new drivers. I recently found this lovely forum and maybe you guys can help. I have a Three-Year-Old Dell 5150 with a 3.06 Ghz Mobile Pentium 4 and a NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200. In Internet Explorer and parts of Windows itself, images appear pixelated or stretched. In other programs, the same images don't. What could be the problem?

The following are screenshots:

In IE/Windows:


In Firefox:


Thanks!
~ Brett

P.S. - I put it in this forum because I suspect it's an issue with the NVIDIA card or incompatibility of it with something else.

 

really i have the same card in my 3 year old desktop and i don't have any of those problems??? has the problem been this way the entire time you have had the computer???

 

Yep, since day one - I thought a driver update might fix it so I didn't return it but it never did. Also Firefox doesn't have the problem and I like it more than IE anyway. The problem persists even in IE7 Beta 2. Anywhere in Windows where there's a graphic, there's slight blurring like above. It's less noticeable in little icons in the quicklaunch tray but it's there. Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!
~ Brett

 

I could have sworn reading about some Dell program that scales the fonts and stuff in Internet Explorer, I cant remember where I read about it

 

it's available in the dell site's download section where you get your drivers

EDIT: forgot to mention, to ensure crisp text/images you need to:

1. run in your native resolution
2. set your dpi to 96
3. enable cleartype