Grey screen G5 Mac Pro - no Boot issue Solved!

So I have a 2008 G5 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon that randomly started giving me kernel panics and going to sleep and not waking up and then finally just would refuse to boot past the chime screen on any of my OS drives (I have 3 internals) and all that jazz... Went through the usual "has to be bad ram" and "re-install the LION OS" and tried safe boot mode - boot from disk etc... ad nauseum. Tested every pair of Ram and followed all of the advice here.
Well it was none of that. Took it to a Genius bar yesterday and we swapped out the video card. BINGO. Well actually not bingo - the first brand new ATI video card we tried was faulty and didn't even chime. Pulled an ATI 5770 HD card out and everything was back! AND it turns out that this is a known issue with the original ATI video cards in the stock model of 2008 G5's - and Apple is sending me a brand new video card to replace my old ATI 256mb one.
So if any of you out there are having these issues that just sort of start popping up out of the blue - I advise you to look into the ATI video card before tearing out your hair and setting the houes on fire. Good Luck! And great work at the Genius bar in Costa Mesa!!! I am sticking with the 5770. I hope this info helps someone.

Sure this is your first post? I guess under this ID, but there are no G5 2008s.
They are called MacPro3,1 and Mac Pro Early 2008.
Not G5 (or G6 or G-anything)
No G5 can run 10.6 or later, like Lion.
Yes, well known and there was a recall/replacement for ATI 2600XTs, and there are some with the ATI 5770s. One person was out of warranty didn't have AppleCare which is about the cost of 5770.
I even tell people to swap out and get the 5770 before their (7300GT, X1900, 2600XT, etc) has trouble (which is almost inevitable).

Similar Messages

Mac Pro 2006 boots into OS fine but graphics freezes on grey apple logo

When I boot my Mac Pro it boots into Mac OS X fine. I can access it remotely and all seems fine however the monitor only displays the grey apple with the whit background. I know the graphics card isnt over heating because I have removed any dirt/dust and had additional fans blowing the card and it is running cool.
does this mean the graphics card is dead? if so what can i replace it with as the machine is now 5 years old?
the current graphics card is a GeForce 8800 GT.

That last one is not a good sign. Kernel panic when starting from an installer DVD either mean you are using an installer version that cannot boot your model or there's a hardware problem.
I'm thinking your original thought may be valid. It would be provable if you had another GPU to try, but if you don't then I suppose you should replace the one you have. Of those available the ATI 5770 is an excellent replacement choice for both performance and cost unless you want to look for a different replacement card on eBay.

HT4818 Boot from laptop's Windows Hard Drive in Mac Pro via Boot Camp

I have a work laptop that is on Windows 7. It's a work hard drive so I don't want to mess with it (particularly as it's encrypted). I basically want to use it on my Mac Pro rather than my piece of junk standard issue laptop when I'm working from home.
What I would like to do is pull the drive out, put it in my Mac Pro and boot from it using Boot Camp. Guidance I've seen so far talks about not being able to use an external drive but having to partition an internal drive. However, if I've got everything on a separate drive (i.e. my laptop's drive), will this work?
Thanks!

Thanks for the quick (and no nonsense) response!

Mac pro wont boot or chime

Mac pro wont boot or chime

you don't know how to provide more details or what you have tried or are you just lost?
What OS is on it? and this is a 4-drive 65 lb workstation and not a MacBook Pro notebook.
Safe Boot
Lion or ML Recovery Mode
Reset SMC
Kernel Panic
Resolving Kernal Panics
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10344626-263.html
http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Troubleshooting-Os-X-Kernel-Panics.htm
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742
Mac OS X Help
Isolating Issues in Mac OS
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388
https://www.apple.com/support/osx/
https://www.apple.com/support/quickassist/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/help/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
Get Help with your Product
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304725
TimeMachine 101
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Mac OS X & Mountain Lion Community
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/os_x_mountain_lion?view=discussio ns
Recovery Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
ExpressLane
https://expresslane.apple.com/
Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1367
And just in case....
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro

Mac pro cannot boot after upgrade to 10.8.3

My Mac Pro cannot boot after upgrade to 10.8.3. Anything firmware I can reset or how should I do.
I am using a early 2008 Mac Pro

Can you boot into safe mode? http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455
If not, how about Recovery? http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
If you can, run Disk Utlity and repair the disk. You can try rebooting normally, but I would just reinstall after quitting Disk Utility.

I have put Windows 8 on my Mac pro, in boot camp, no I am unable to load drivers

I have put Windows 8 on my Mac pro, in boot camp, no I am unable to load drivers to get it working as it should. I have tryed Winows 7 Con, in setup.

Did you download the drivers to a FAT32 formatted USB drive per the instructions?

Mac Pro gets stuck on the grey screen and won't finish booting

I have a Mac Pro 1, 1 recently (successfully) upgraded to snow leopard that gets stuck on the grey screen with the spinning rainbow cursor (after the apple logo and brief blue screen) and won't finish booting up. This happened after my computer froze up and I had to force quit. I checked out the forums and I tried all the all the suggestions (like disconnecting peripherals) and appropriate disk utilities, saw no errors with the HD reported, and had no trouble doing a safe boot (everything works o.k. there) or starting up from the software disk to perform the repairs. I did notice that during the repair permissions command, it gets stuck in the last few minutes, the CD starts to chug along, and everything freezes and I have to force quit. This happens every time I try it. I eventually backed everything up, erased the HD and reinstalled the OS, reset PRAM and NVRAM, but I'm still getting the grey screen on restart. Tech tool deluxe reports a "fail" on the video RAM, but everything else seems to check out. Could it be a graphics card issue? I did notice some funky visual glitches occurring prior to the breakdown. Any other ideas?

I wouldn't trust Apple Disk Utility to do a hard drive repair, but I would go with TechTool Pro 5/6 if you have that instead of Disk Warrior from Alsoft.
Clone the drive, though you should have some bootable backup clones already; repair the clone; then boot and work from that drive. Always have a working copy of the system.
And off load all your data to other drives.

Mac Pro 3,1 Stuck on Grey screen for 1 min during boot

I have a Late 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 and have started experiencing a very slow boot up. The computer gets stuck for over a minute on the initial gray screen after the first boot chime. Once the apple logo finally appears the boot goes normally. Once running it seems OK. The shut down seems normal with a grey screen for a few seconds with the "clock" logo.
Symptom:
After the chime I see a blank gray screen for in excess of 1 minute, it used to last only a couple of seconds.
Once the dark grey Apple logo appears the boot goes at normal speed
I have a number of different hard drives with older systems and booting from each of then gives the problem - so it does not seem to be system/disc related
Two partitions (Mavericks and ML) are on SSD's installed on a Sonnet PCIe Card and showed the same problem as the spinning hard discs.
I tried: (following a trawl of the bb's etc)
I repaired permissions and repaired all discs for all my boot partitions (10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9) using the appropriate Disc Utility
Zapping the Pram - this was very strange as I had to keep the cmd alt P R held down for around a minute before the second chime occurred, the time of the grey screen stays stuck
Resetting the SMC
Booting in Verbose Safe Mode: Again I had to hold the Alt V down for a minute on the gray screen before the screen went black and the text appeared
I looked on the console log but could see nothing obvious, additionally from the verbose safe mode boot the text log seems to start from when the grey screen disappears. The time stamps show the boot finishing in well under the minute I wait.
Any suggestions you may have are very welcome.
Regards
Dave

Thanks The Hatter for that information. The blank gray screen is now lasting 3 mins before the Apple appears. When I restarted the system log is as below. As you can see there is just over a three minute gap between the shut down and the boot, indicating to me that it is not something in the system software after the boot but a problem at the very start. It does look like it could be something to do with the hardware as you suggest. I have verified all the discs with the disc utility and they report as OK and their SMART status is also OK. I have disconnected the external drives with no change so I will now have to do a thorough check and systematically remove the internal ones but that will have to wait for the weekend.
I have Mavericks on the Samsung 840 Pro and ML on a Crucial SSD (Crucial_CT240M500SSD1 Media) on a PCIe card. The Mavericks install I think was an upgrade, not a clean install done quite a while ago. I only noticed the problem this week when I re-booted in an ML to run some software not compatible with Mavericks. I have made a system back up as a precaution to an external disc just in case my main drive is dying!
There are some firmware updates for both the SSD discs that I have not applied these yet but I will leave them out of the mix until I have tried simplifying my configuration with a single disc.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local shutdown[952]: reboot by _spotlight:
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext loading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext unloading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local shutdown[952]: SHUTDOWN_TIME: 1429650566 934799
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kext autounloading now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro kernel[0]: Kernel requests now disabled.
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local Mediatap[297]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection interrupted
Apr 21 22:09:26 Davids-Mac-Pro.local Mediatap[297]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection invalid
Apr 21 22:13:02 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1429650782 0
Apr 21 22:13:04 localhost syslogd[18]: Configuration Notice:
ASL Module "com.apple.appstore" claims selected messages.
Those messages may not appear in standard system log files or in the ASL database.
Apr 21 22:13:04 localhost syslogd[18]: Configuration Notice:
ASL Module "com.apple.authd" sharing output destination "/var/log/system.log" with ASL Module "com.apple.asl".
Output parameters from ASL Module "com.apple.asl" override any specified in ASL Module "com.apple.authd".

Grey screen on Macbook Pro boot up

I've got a Macbook Pro 15" laptop (mid-2011) running Mac OS X Lion. It recently broke down and I can't get past the grey screen on bootup. It gets to the Apple logo and the circle loading animation then straight to grey screen.
I've tried Safe Mode, zapped the PRAM, plugged everything out of it including the power cable, even tried to boot the recovery HD using the Option key. When I clicked Recovery HD, it went straight back to the grey screen. Nothing seems to work.
I bought the computer the same week Lion came out so it had Snow Leopard on it and came with the Snow Leopard installation disc. I downloaded Lion from the App store for free. What would happen if I booted the computer from the Snow Leopard install disc? Would I lose anything that was previously on my computer like software I downloaded for Lion (Pages, Numbers, Keynote etc.)? Would I be able to get these back if I reinstall Lion after the boot and where would I get Lion from as I don't have the installation disc. Could I access my Apple account history on the App store and reinstall Lion from there somehow as I've seen Lion is no longer available on the App store?
HELP!!

What would happen if I booted the computer from the Snow Leopard install disc? Would I lose anything that was previously on my computer like software I downloaded for Lion (Pages, Numbers, Keynote etc.)?
Booting the computer from the Snow Leopard install disc alone won't do anything. Only if you were to attempt an installation from that disc might you run into trouble. Kind of like trying to put a propeller on a jet airplane. It just can't be done without removing the entire engine!
The 10.6 installer disc won't get you to the App Store.    For that you need to boot with command-R.
If your data isn't backed up, you seriously need to consider some data recovery options before attempting even a command-R.   Once your data is backed up, contact the App Store support to get the Lion or Mountain Lion installer program to show up on your App Store, depending on where your software compatibility lies.
In the future, it is always wise to keep a clone of your system in event something should go wrong. That way you don't need the store to have the correct installer for your system.

Mac Pro wont boot to logon screen

Help!!
A couple of weeks ago, before upgrading to 10.5.7, my screen would freeze like a picture with the mouse cursor able to move but nothing would respond. I generally had to use the main power button at least 5 times before the display would show anything and get to the logon screen. It seemed to happen when moving the mouse cursor to the top right corner of my display, which I use to "Display all windows". I have since updated to 10.5.7 but was still getting the problem. A couple of times the display just shut off on its own, there was a click within the computer then the display went blank. This has happened a few times.
Last night the screen froze again and I tried the usual reboot about 40 times and only a few times got the Grey Apple screen but would not get any further. If I had a blank screen on reboot the hard drive would be spinning at full speed and would not stop until I switched the machine off.
Now it has a mind of its own! If I get to the Grey screen it now has the sun ray symbol going round and sits like that for some minutes then the machine reboots and it goes through this cycle repeatedly on its own!
I can't get it to boot into the logon screen at all now.
I have tried various startup key options to no effect (no response to any startup options including PRAM, SMC, disconnecting all external items etc) and I am now at a loss as to what to do next.
Personally I think I have two problems, one possibly a faulty graphics card and secondly corrupted Operating System software?
Any ideas?
Thanks
Douglas

Hi Peter,
Thank you for your advice. It has taken many reboots to get it to recognise the install disk! Eventually it came up and I ran Disk Utility. It said the drive could not be repaired as Keys were out of order. I managed to install OSX on my second hard drive and I am now copying all the info I need from that drive after which I will reformat it ready for use again.
What a nightmare! Even worse are the negative comments I have read about the Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB Drives as I have 2 installed and also a couple of Lacie External 500GB and 600GB Drives which have also had bad reviews and I did have one fail and have spent years trying to recover 20,000 photos.
So looks like I am heading for another disaster down the line!
Thanks for your help with this one though!
Regards
Douglas

Problems with EFI Firmware Update to 1.5 for mid 2010 Mac Pro, and sleep issues

Hello to the community, I have run into an annoying issue.
I need to update the EFI firmware on my 8 core mid-2010 Mac Pro. I downloaded the EFI update from the apple website from here : http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1321
But everytime I download it, as I click to install, it gives me the message:
Alert
This software is not supported on your system.
But clearly this is the correct EFI for my computer. I tried burning the Firmware restoration onto a CD from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1320
But the computer did not respond the way it said it should (with the 3 flashes/beeps etc.) and have the optical drive open for the CD.
So I'm completely stuck.
*Also my Mac Pro had issues with sleep, when I put it to sleep, sometimes when I try to bring it back, it restarts itself, and other times, it just turns itself on and the monitor screen remains black, so I have to hit the power button to turn it off then back on again. This only happnens when the computer has been put to sleep for a slightly extended period of time, roughly 20mins +, sometimes longer. I was trying to solve this problem by first updating the firmware because I think it could be related to that, but I've had this problem with the firmware so I couldn't find out. This is actually the bigger problem for me because it will affect my work. I am currently using an iMac while I fix up this mac pro.
I'm a music composer so I've upgraded many aspects of my system due to work. I have a 1TB Samsung 840 evo SSD, 2 seagate 2 TB HDD, and 1 WD 1TB HD (the original one in the mac pro), along with 32 GB of RAM. So my only problems are the firmaware and the weird activity when the computer is put to sleep.
Some help would be greatly appreciated!
I'm running OS X Mavericks 10.9.2
mid-2010 Mac Pro
8 core processor (2 X 2.4gHz)

According to this article, your EFI firmware is up to date:
Computer
Model identifier
EFI Boot ROM version
SMC version
Mac Pro
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
MacPro6,1
MP61.0116.B04 (EFI 2.0)
2.20f18 (SMC 2.0)
Mac Pro (Mid 2010)
MacPro5,1
MP51.007F.B03 (EFI 1.5)
Mac Pro (Early 2009)
MacPro4,1
MP41.0081.B07 (EFI 1.4)
Mac Pro (Early 2008)
MacPro3,1
MP31.006C.B05 (EFI 1.3)
Mac Pro (8-core)
MacPro2,1
MP21.007F.B06 (EFI 1.2)
1.15f3 (SMC 1.1)
Mac Pro (Original)
MacPro1,1
MP11.005C.B08 (EFI 1.2)
1.7f10 (SMC 1.1)
EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs

Updates on Mac Pro Prevent Boot from SSD

Hey there everyone,
I recently upgraded my 2010 Mac Pro (Quad Core) to an SSD Drive using the OCZ Petrol Drive and I coudn't be happier. The system is super snappy and works great. That said, I downloaded the latest updates to my system last night and as of today, it wont boot to the SSD. All other boot operations seem fine, but the SSD wont boot. It goes into the progress bar screen you get when a firmware update is running then just shuts itself down.
I tried reseting the PRAM with no luck and also tried a disk repair from the Lion Recovery Partition as well as a Lion DVD I made, but both fail to repair the disk. I am currently recovering from a Time Machine backup and everything seems to be OK so far, but has this happened to anyone else with the latest batch of updates? I will update this post when the Time Machine Backup completes and let you all know the outcome.

Update 2: I did a hard shutdown and rebooted holding down the option key to try and boot from the Lion Recovery partition and perform a disk repair only to find out the Lion Recovery partition was no more. Wow...looks like this is a bigger issue than I thought. Reinstalling Lion from a DVD now. This should be fun...

Problems installing windows on a clean Mac Pro internal drive - issues and questions

Hey,
I have a Mac Pro mid 2010 with the following drive configurations:
3x120GB SSD in a RAID-0 as Boot (OS X 10.8.6) and SSD Scratch (working files)
3x4TB HDD in a RAID-0 as Master (data) and HDD Scratch (downloads)
1x100GB SSD (Spare...to install windows on)
I have literally tried every possible way of installing Windows 8 on that single SSD...both using bootcamp and without.
I can get it installed and working, install all the drivers/updates/software...involving multiple reboots into windows. Everything seems fine, and i shut down and boot into OS X, which works perfectly as expected. BUT, when i try and boot into Windows again (using <option> key at startupand selecting the windows volume, called "EFI Boot" which i did not name) I can log in and start using apps and then 20-40 seconds later i get the BSOD.
I can't for the life of me figure out why.
It's the easiest thing in the world to partition a single OSX drive to boot windows ON THE SAME DRIVE, but i can't seem to boot stably into a standaloe internal drive.
NOTE: I prepare the Windows drive by formatting the entire thing to "Free Space" using disk utility in Mac OS X, and can see that there are no partitions (EFI or otherwise) on the drive. Then I pull all the other drives except the target drive, reboot with a Windows 8 USB drive (created by BootCamp Assistant on my macbook air, because apparently some genius thought that task was too complicated for a Mac Pro...jks) and install from there. The funny part is that i can pick out the target drive in the windows setup, it's registering as 1 disk/partition of UNALLOCATED SPACE, as expected, but there is a warming that windows cannot be installed on this drive because my computer does not support booting to this disk, and that i should check that it's controller is enabled in the BIOS.....which to the best of my knowledge is not used by intel-macs, which use UEFI. But i can still click "Next", so I do and install Windows and boot to this drive, restarting and installing software updates and drivers as mentioned above.
The BSOD seems to pop up only after i've rebooted to Mac OS X and then try to go BACK to Windows 8.
The version of windows 8 and install USB were checked using my macbook air, and they work flawlessly. ASLO that warning about not being able to boot to the drive during windows setup isn't present.
I'm wondering if the fact the the RAID volumes are a software RAID, using Disk Utility in OSX is causing windows some issues...which makes no sense.
I'll keep playing, but I'm not confident I'm ever going to find a solution.
Somebody be my hero...

Hey Hatter,
Another question for you:
I can't seem to use system preferences>>startup disk to boot into windows. When I select windows and then restart i get a black "BIOS-like" screen which then cuts out and a message is displayed that says "there is no bootable disc"
This stumped me, because I know i can boot into windows from the boot screen (holding down option and selecting "EFI Boot" which apparently is what my windows drive is called.
because of my Mac OSX Raid arrays, i had to install windows by formatting a drive to HFS+ (GUID) pratition table, then repartition to "Free Space" then using an install usb that i made with my macbook air, pull all my other drives and install by selecting the usb drive to boot from.
I went into disk utility to see if I can repair the disk, and disk utility says that the disk has to EFI partition and that we won;t be able to boot from it....which is very confusing because i can boot from it.
Windows 8 apparentl;y uses UEFI from my research....so i'm utterly stumped.
I beleive this is also the cause of my newly purchased graphics card Mac Edition HD 7950, throwing me a BSOD when i select to boot in windows from the boot menu...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Please help! Grey screen on Macbook Pro 15"

Good morning to all!
Last night, suddenly my Macbook pro 15" shut down. When I tried to restart, I got just a grey screen.
I already tried all commands to recover my mac back, when a boot at single mode and use fsck I got a lot of errors. (I tried more than 15 times and still got errors!)
I tried to boot with my Snow Leopard DVD, but got a blue screen.
I'm thinking in buy a new hard drive to start a fresh new instalation. By the way, my OS is the new Maverick.
What should I do?
I appreciate any help!
Marcello Lima

The boot drive is failing, or there is some other hardware fault.
Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store, or go to another authorized service provider.
Back up all data on the internal drive(s) before you hand over your computer to anyone. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional — ask if you need guidance.
If privacy is a concern, erase the data partition(s) with the option to write zeros* (do this only if you have at least two complete, independent backups, and you know how to restore to an empty drive from any of them.) Don’t erase the recovery partition, if present.
Keeping your confidential data secure during hardware repair
*An SSD doesn't need to be zeroed.

Mac Pro and Boot Camp Woes

I had installed the retail version of leopard yesterday... Which i might add that I enjoyed thoroughly! However, this morning I had a hankering to play some Windows based games. So I went ahead and used boot camp.... Everything seemed to start off swimmingly with repartioning my drive. (Also took heed on keeping the new partition as FAT32 and not NTFS) Got to the point where Windows was copying files necessary for setup and finished. Rebooted my computer to begin setup and of course the cd was still in the drive so I got the infamous "Press any key to boot from CD" so i waited and received the msg "DISK ERROR" my system was completely locked up. So i held the power button in for 5 seconds to shut off the computer and tried restarting it. Now all i get is no video signal and the steady flashing light on the front of the Mac Pro (fans and drives are powering up). I've tried the following to resolve the issue (all resulting in the same black screen):
1) Held down "C" and booted up with my leopard install disc in the drive
2) Held down the option button to specify the boot device
3) Removed internal battery and held the power button on for 5 seconds to clear
4) Resetting the PRAM with command, option, p, and r keys pressed
5) Tried a different monitor (off another working computer)
6) Held down the shift key while booting up
No success! Like i said before i hear the drives spinning and fans humming just fine. Does anyone have any suggestions?

With a Mac Pro, and with a new OS... I would have advised to create your Windows partition on another disk drive and not on your boot drive.
I would also then pull either or both OS X drives (assuming you kept Tiger on another drive somewhere).
Microsoft would like to see customers move to the NTFS, it is a better file system, use FAT for when you need to share files, or use MacDrive7 even. Took heed not to use NTFS? don't understand. I have to use it of course (Vista) and I have one small 100GB FAT volume. Now most of my files are on NTFS (readable from OS X side if needed).
Did Windows update or never got that far (there should be a lot of updates, patches, etc) and at some point you would need your Leo DVD to install the Apple BootCamp patches, drivers, and services.
I prefer using the SMC Reset button - not PRAM reset.
Probably another X1900 issue?

Grey screen G5 Mac Pro - no Boot issue Solved!

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