Please help ! Feather HD install, no display w/o liveCD

WTF ! I've tried copying files as stated from the Feather forum and no luck, gone through 32-24-16-8bit setups and nothing, re-installed it the hard way, not the recommended one and I got the plain, black dead screen, and as su, tried "chown knoppix .Xauthority" and still nadda for me, I KNOW i have an old crusty PC and video card that's obviously has issues but I've already gone through Fedora8 and Ubuntu and had similar display issues, lag, freexe up and comeplete shutdowns ? So gimme a clue here peeps, what's next? besides trying SimplyMEPIS !? peace out..jon