Couple things:

Computers NEVER fix themselves.

Windows 7 Gateway should be fine.  You should have gotten a disc with it.  Sometimes, on a Gateway, they have a separate partition on your hard drive to reinstall the operating system and all the programs that came with it.  It MAY wipe out all your documents, pics, files you create since you bought it, so make a back up before you reinstall.

It must have worked when you first got it, right?  Was it faster and did it start up sooner?

There is a thing called "bit rot," that happens to all forms of computer media (as far as I know).  It can cause lots of problems.  It's normal/abnormal.

You may have problems that won't fix themselves, unless you really know what you are doing.

Monitor size has nothing to do with rendering speed, only good for looking at, but yes, bigger is better, usually.  Depends on resolution.  Your new computer probably has external port and you "could" hook up a bigger monitor.

If you have made a back up of your Gateway Windows 7 computer, and you completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall fresh, I would bet your Poser problems would be gone.

If you don't know what you are doing it might be worth it to take it in somewhere where they do that sort of thing.  Geeksquad or similar.

Thanks for your comments.  Google "can computers fix themselves."

The Gateway  worked HORRIBLY  from the beginning..   It works a bit  better now, no longer taking forever to come on.    I have no idea why.  I did nothing to fix it.  Maybe threre is a little geek inside.  Outside repair is not cheap, especially if the software didn't come with the computer.  And it meant giving up my computer for several days.  

Eventually, I bought a laptop.  

I never said monitor size had anything to do with render speed!  And yes, I may connect another monitor to my laptop.  

I think my computer has reverse "bit rot."   

Thanks again to all of you for your comments and advice.  I won't bug you again unless I finally get Poser 8 to work.  I deleted Poser 9 today, to lessen usage.  They are pretty much the same, anyhow.

I wanted you all to know that this time, while installing Poser 8 and 9,  I picked the "disk space is low on the boot volume" option.    I guess that means I didn't have enough space to boot Poser.   Every once in a while, I will do something that P8 or 9  "don't like," and they will crash, but for the most part, doing a search does not cause a crash.  Thanks again to all  for your helpful suggestions.

Hey, thanks for posting that.  You may have saved someone a lot of grief.

Thanks!  I hope so!  I certainly had a lot of grief!