DELL 19inch CRT washed out on the DVI port of an ATI 8500

I unplugged my very old (4 years but running good) Radeon 8500 and plugged it in my office computer to get dual monitor support. I plugged 2 relatively new identiical Dell 19 inch CRT's into the 8500. The primary i plugged it into the vga port and the 2nd (using a DVI to VGA converter that came with my 7800GTX) to the DVI port.

The monitor on the DVI port looks Washed out even as windows is starting. I tried plugging in another monitor but it was the same. im beginning to wonder whether the conversion from DVI to VGA has issues? Any comments guys?

Thanks.