sounds like you have loaded from a real cd copy rather than a recovery copy?
xp will do it's best using "vanilla" drivers (the ones that come on the CD)....
at worst this will restrict you to 640x480 (good enough to load the "real ones"
however ... the correct drivers will make your hardware work better
the sequence is ....
mobo
video
sound
anything else (look in device manager for red and yellow warnings)
when you load the correct video drivers for your card ... you'll then get the correct refresh rates and resolutions
if you don't have the original software for your pc components, run an "aida32" scan http://www.sofotex.com/AIDA32-download_L9326.h tml
which will identify the components for you so you can go to the maker's website & download them.