Bright colors washed out (show as white). why?

I checked out two LCD monitors in the store today (aske them to hook up two from the display rack to a computer).
Upon connecting them to the computer and messing around, I noticed that the near white colors were washed out. Upon testing things in paint, I noticed that grey colors as far as perhaps 233, 233, 233 were showing up the same as pure white. Colors close to black were not as problematic, though there may have been something present.
However, lowering the contrast on the monitor itself did help some of the colors to finally show (no longer were they the same as white). However, putting the contrast below 100 also resulted in a more faded look for the rest of the colors/screen; higher contrast looks better of course.

Does anyone have any idea what caused this? I was using VGA... One monitor was 16.7, the other was 16.2.