The International Cessna^® 170 Association

This actually has nothing to do with C-170's, flying or aviation, but with the vast knowledge available in our forum its worth a shot to see if any suggestions might be forthcoming. I have a Dell INSPIRON 1501 laptop. Using Windows XP Prodessional. I am using a new HP 2009m monitor with it. The monitor itself works fine, but something in the laptop that is driving the monitor is causing a problem. Continually the screen will go blank for a couple of seconds and the size of whatever is on the screen will change to a smaller size. It still fills the full screen, but anything on the screen is reduced in its size. Its not just the text font size, but all displayed items. It may immediately go back to the correct size or may stay in the small size. Sometimes it changes several times within a 60 second time frame. Any suggestions as to what might be causing this and how to go into the laptop and correct the problem? Yes, I am computer challenged

My first thought was to re-load the monitor driver.
But you may want to contact Dell tech support and talk to somebody 'in the know'. Or maybe contact the store that you acquired it from.
It seems pretty odd that the the screen would jump back and forth like that. Right click your mouse on your desktop screen and check the display properties.

Just my 2 cents worth...
from one square tail to another...

What seems to be happening is your computer can't decide what screen resolution you should have and it is switching between several of them. This is strange.

I'd make sure you have the correct screen resolution selected first. Then you might check with the screen manufacturer for the latest driver and install that. After that I'd be calling Dell and asking them what they think.

After thinking about this on my way home from work, I realized you said you had a HP monitor hooked up to your laptop.
Your laptop has its own display driver for the screen attached. That driver is now working the HP monitor you have connected to it. Looks like the driver in the laptop is not compatible with the HP monitor.
I think, but I may be wrong, you could set up your system to go one of two ways when you turn it on. Like personal settings. You could have one option that allows you to start the system as a basic laptop as per factory without the HP. The other option would allow you to start the system loading the driver for the HP monitor. Although I'm not sure how it would affect the laptops' display. Clear as mud, right?
But then, why would anybody want to put a tailwheel on a 172 when they could just go buy a 170...

Another idea ... you can resize the contents of a web page by holding the Ctrl button and rolling the mouse wheel. I've done that accidentally a few times, and it can happen unexpectedly if the laptop's touchpad is active and picks up unintended contacts. That wouldn't make the screen go blank for a second, though.