I had this problem too, and in my case it was resolved by updating my video drivers. I have a GeForce 2 GTS, at the time running the 23.11 drivers on WinMe; I updated to 71.84 for WinMe, and all is fixed.
Very important though, on the NVidia site when you go to select the drivers for your card and download them, it will let you download the latest (8x.xx or 9x.xx) EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR CARD. The latest ones are listed as being compatible with the full line of TNT and Geforce cards, but this is not the case, if you read the fine print to the left ("Products Supported" link).
I actually couldn't restart my computer except in safe mode, after installing the wrong drivers, and had to download the correct ones on another computer and rar them up onto floppies in order to install them on the affected computer (since safe mode doesn't have internet or cd-rom access)... (note -- in safe mode normally you should be able to revert to the vga drivers, and then start up in normal mode, but this didn't work for me).
In my case, for a GeForce 2 GTS, the latest compatible was 71.84 for WinMe/9x, and, I believe, for WinXP/2k, it's 71.89.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_archive.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_71.89.html
Hope this will help some of you, if you have the same problem.