CrazyDawg,
This last week am old w98 computer with an ATI RAGE PRO Turbo AGP 2x video card wasn't running properly so I thought I'd try to fix it.It ran 8 16 and  32 bit but not 24. Well I took my nvidea card from another computer in it and all it would give me is 16  colors. so I put the old one in and sure enough 16 colors.  I checked the bios memory which gave me the cards name so I figured the bios was OK I went to ati and got the updated driver for it. The driver wanted directx 8.1 to run so I got the  runtime from microsoft. still  16 colors. well  I tried and retried until I remembered an old trick.
Sure enough the video driver in the system .ini file was set to vga.drv. updated that info something like vdd.vxd (the display driver's file is listed in ControlPanel:system:display) and prestochango dontwantnowinabego !!! Bob and Fanny were my mother's siblings.

The moral to this needless and boring story is that those in charge of making these things make them overly difficult probably so people won't mess around with them while they are under warrantee and their so called failsafes are usually simple but adequate.

Now if the cat would come home I'd be all set. Well except for the fact that the dx8.1  I put on the system is incompatable with the old sb awe 32 soundcard so now I gotta rummage around for an old PCI sound blaster with 16 meg for it. Not so shabby when you consider the computer shop down the street sells such things used - not as cheaply as they should be but then I'm not complainin'.

As to you being a jinx: I think you might be carrying around a static electric charge or something like that. Another possibility is that The power transformer in your area might be putting out less than normal voltage thereby messing up everything electric.
-TJ