I loaded up KDE and changed the resolution to accomodate my 12 inch screen and when I did that, the display lost a lot of brightness. When I quit the session and go back to the terminal from login, it regains it brightness again. any suggestions?

did you find the optimal refresh rates for your monitor and set them in xorg.conf?

Where would I find the optimal refresh rates for my monitor? Its an old gateway laptop and the resolution should be at 800x600. Also, where in Xorg.conf would I change the refresh rates?

first make a backup copy of your xorg.conf
then run xorgsetup and let it auto detect your hardware.
this will also create a barebones xorg.conf
look through the xorg.conf file that it creates, note the video driver and look at the 'monitor' section.
note the:
HorizSync
VertRefresh
values
then edit the backup copy of the xorg.conf file you created earlier and change the video driver to get correct one, and edit the monitor section according to the refresh rates detected.
let me know how it turns out, you can also try X with the barebones xorg.conf that xorgsetup creates, that may work fine for an older laptop

Thanks, that worked perfect. I just need to unload kde, run xorgsetup, and run startx again