Imac gets grey screen and fan runs hard

When I try to turn on my computer I get a grey screen with an apple and the fan runs like crazy. Sometimes I just get a grey box saying I need to reboot in several languages. Along with the fan running. Other times I get the grey box and then a bunch of text behind it with the fan running. I have tried to reinstall Leopard twice and get the same thing. Any ideas?
Jason

Hi Jason - have you tried booting from your install disc and running Disk Utility?
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
If your drive has been repaired, boot from your internal and repair permissions.
You might also try resetting the PRAM

Similar Messages

G5 start up problem: stuck at grey screen with fans running full strength

hi, i'm new to discussions, so i hope this question and my technical knowledge and descriptions will be OK: problem: G5 20" stuck at grey screen with fans running full strength..
so far i've tried but did not work:
- power off by pressing the button for 5 secs,
- checked all cables connections etc, take out the power cable try again, etc.
- removed all USB connections, re-did
- tried to use it as 'target drive' connected to my macbook by firewire
- tried to start up and keeping C key pressed
- tried to start up with 'shift' key pressed
- tried to start up with command, options, P and R keys pressed,
- i had an additional RAM, i've taken it out and tried again, no luck
- i've put in Mac OS X install disc1, no luck, and now disc is inside my iMac, can't take it out
any recommendations? thank you!

Scroto,
You may not actually have a bad processor. On the Dual G5's it's not uncommon after a few years for dust and corrosion to build up between the processors and their sockets. You can fairly easily remove the processors and clean the connections yourself if you're at all handy. Basically, snap off the heatsink covers, loosen a few screws and the processor and heatsink come out as a unit.
Clean the contacts on the processors (carefully). And clean the sockets. Be sure to put the same processor in the same place or you'll have issues.
I used 90% isopropol alcohol to clean mine last year. Let it air dry and blew both the socket and the cpu off after with canned air. That done, I reinstalled the processors, buckled everything up and no more "bad" processor... The machine worked perfectly from then on and I assume it still does today. Don't know, someone stole it last month:(...

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

At startup I get grey screen and a folder with a flashing question mark. How do I reset my MacBook Pro to the manufacture defaults?

Click here and follow the instructions. If the computer originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.8 or earlier, when you reach step 5, insert its original disk, restart with the C key held down, use the Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and install a fresh OS.
(113954)

My MBP wouldn't start this morning, it was just stuck on white screen with grey logo and fan running. I replaced my magsafe power cord and resolved starting issue. Now I can't connect to internet and iTunes won't load??? Help?

This morning I was just getting the white screen with logo and status bar with fan running. I thought it was an issue with the power adapter so I went out and replaced it. MBP will start now, but won't connect to internet. I have full wi-fi signal. Also, when I try to launch iTunes, it just quits right away. Please help?
-A

Reinstall OS X without erasing the drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

21" iMac getting white screen and does not boot up

Hi All!
This is my first time to post here but have been using Mac OS since 2009.
I am having issues with my Mid 2011 iMac 21". I keep getting a white screen and it does not boot up.
I am a bit technical so I have done all the necessary steps as below:
1. Powercycle the system (Shutdown, unplug for 10 seconds and replug) = No go
2. Reset NVRAM several times = No go
3. Went to Safe Boot = Vertical white stripes on blue screen appears
4. Tried booting on Recovery Disk = Vertical white stripes on blue screen appears
I'm thinking my video card is faulty now.
Any help guys? I hope my hard drive is not fried
What's worse, my 3 year extended warranty just expired last June and it's only been 3 months

First i can't send it back becuase it didnt have a warranty i purchased it on ebay. second the guy didnt send the install disks with it as he promised i have tried to follow up with him with no luck so hes been reported to ebay. and due to current buisiness expenses cant afford the new software. is there anything else i can do to at least boot the thing so i can figure out whats wrong with it. and has anybody experienced this before and if so how was the issue resolved. soooo frustrated as buisiness is at a stand still till this machine works. p.s.it has osx leopard latest version.
Message was edited by: AMILLIANZE

Black screen and fan running full- bore

Computer was running fine when I closed the lid (no shutdown) to put it to sleep for the night. Next morning as usual I opened the lid but the screen showed no signs of waking up. The battery was apparently dead so I plugged it in. Pushed the power button and the fan came on full-bore and the screen never showed a sign of coming to life. Restart, no help. Attempted to zap the PRAM but no signs that the key commands were recognized. (2 month old keyboard after the computer took a nasty fall and the old one popped out damaging the ribbon cable connector). Inserted a disk I thought would allow the computer to boot off of, it did some spinning but no change in computer's operational status. Eject button or key commands now fail to get the CD out. The only way to restart is to press power button until computer goes off then press again to start. The fan just keeps on running but nothing on the screen.
Connected computer to external monitor, no help, even after restarting. The monitor is connected to a G4 platinum tower so I know it works.
I also don't see a way to eject the inserted CD manually as command E, eject button, won't eject it.
I'm at a loss! First time a Mac has gotten the best of me. None of my years of little trick gathering has helped.

I tried holding down the trackpad button (forever), no help.
Was the computer all the way off (no lights, fan, sounds, etc.)?
Hold down the power button for ten seconds to shut everything off. If that doesn't do the trick, unplug the power adapter and remove the main battery. Then put them back, hold down the trackpad button, and start up. Is your CD ejected this time? If not, shut everything down again.
If it's a bootable CD, try booting to it after resetting the PRAM: hold down the p and r keys while starting up, and keep holding them down until you've heard three or four startup chimes (if you hear any). After the chimes, release those keys and immediately press the c key to force the PB to try to start up from the CD. Any luck? If the CD isn't a bootable one, of course there's no point in trying this step.
I tried restarting in the firmware mode (command, option, O, F), no help.
I don't know anything about that, so I'm no help with it either.
Before the black screen problem I noticed the battery would run down to zero overnight when the lid was closed and computer was sleeping. I'm not sure this is normal.
Definitely NOT normal, and this is undoubtedly a clue to what's wrong. Something is allowing the battery to drain when it shouldn't. (Batteries, actually, since the backup battery will also drain completely within 10-15 minutes after the main battery, if no AC adapter is connected.) This strongly suggests a short circuit to me. But tell me: do you always leave the Powerbook sleeping on battery power overnight, without the AC adapter connected? Or does the battery drain even with the adapter connected? That would point to a fault in the adapter or in the charging circuitry inside the Powerbook.
A short circuit might leave marks on the surfaces that are coming into contact and shouldn't be. Check the inside of the bottom panel, the logic board surface components, the underside of the keyboard, and whatever else you can see for visible signs of shorting. If you can see that something has been shorting against the inside of the bottom panel, as has occasionally been reported here, cover the affected spot with a small piece of electrical tape to insulate it. Tighten all visible screws — you'll need Phillips #0 and Torx #8 drivers. Look for empty screw holes: a screw wandering around loose inside could cause untold damage.
My AC adapter appears to work fine, it, like the battery, is only a couple of months old. Thing ringlight shows normally.
By "normally," do you mean orange while charging, green when the battery is fully charged, and never flashing, red, or off? That's what normal is.
If you haven't tried to recharge your internal backup battery as described in step 6 of the "Testing Backup Battery" article I linked above, do. Of course you won't be able to see or set the date and time or verify that the battery has been charged, but you can at least do what is supposed to charge it and hope for the best. Again, if it is discharged and hasn't been recharged in the course of all your machinations so far, everything else you do is doomed to fail until it gets recharged.
If after that nothing has changed, you might try disconnecting the backup battery from the logic board. Doing so will sometimes allow a PB to start up that has been prevented from doing so by a stone-dead backup battery. Consult the iFixit Guide for your particular Tibook model to find out exactly where the backup battery connector is in it. In my 1GHz Tibook, it's a small white connector under the right-hand Shift key, with red, white and black wires attached.
If none of this helps, I'm afraid you're due for a trip to the repair shop.

Following software update allert on my MacBookPro (running Leopard, I think) it has been black screened and fan running for 4 hours now without restarting. What should I do?

I tried to push on/off button till it stoted, which it did, but when I pressed it back on again, same thing happened. What should I do?

I tried to push on/off button till it stoted, which it did, but when I pressed it back on again, same thing happened. What should I do?

Powermac G5 stuck on grey screen start up and fans running wild

Hi All
I also have the recurring problem all of a sudden - yesterday all seems well, today am stuck on grey screen and fans getting stronger by the minute. NOTHING works - have been through all sorts of forums and the most I got was to try disk utility - which says all is well - replaced the battery - tried just about anything short of pouring some acid on the **** thing, won't boot from original install CD either - I really need this machine as I earn my living with it and cant afford a new one and why as it was working just perfect - now this mess. In a way don't know why the excellerating fans are not built to simply pick up speed and then eat into the PC board and CPU - at lest this way we know for sure there is nothing we can do.
Does no one here know why the mac is doing this - not even the mac fundies? Unbelievable. I live in Namibia and Apple Mac support here is similar to that on this website - might as well write this on a wall - that is why I am really frustrated... **** Mac

Follow these steps in order:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
The G5 is also subject to solder failure around the RAM slots and memory controller.
It is a fatal condition, but one that can sometimes be temporarily sidestepped by heating the logic board between the RAM slots with a hair dryer.
Heat the board until very warm (hot) then start.
If your machine starts after heating, then you better just leave the machine on all the time.
You never know when the trick won't work......

Imac freezes on startup grey screen and really loud fans

My Imac G5 non intel 20" freezes on startup grey screen and really loud fans start and it won't boot. just have the logo on the grey screen.
I've tried resetting Pram - think that was the right thing to do?
I've tried disk utility, but it won't settle for me to choose the hard drive, it kind of sticks and keeps rotating the wheel.
any ideas anyone?
please help.

Lots of things you can try - first, try resetting the SMU. Next, boot from your install disc, go to Disk Utility and try to verify and repair your hard drive. If that doesn't work, try running the Apple Hardware Test on one of your install discs.
Also, depending on which model you have, you may be eligible for Apple's power supply or video and power issues.
Please post back with results,
Miriam

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

My husband(less technologically inclined than I am), decided to delete programs from our iMac, he turned it off and now it has a grey screen and won't get past it. It won't start in safe mode and when I If I insert the Application Install DVD, to repair the disk, will I loose all my pictures and music?

With a corrupt disk, the install procedure is most likely going to fail.
How old it the disk?
You might be able to reformat it to fix the problem. Of course that means you lose all of your data.
The other alternative is to get a new disk drive and put that in your Mac and install OS X
Then put the old disk drive in an enclosure and see what can be recovered from it.
Allan

20" imac won't start up-flashes between blank grey screen and black screen

20" imac
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Was running system 10.5.8 just fine. Worked great.
But then I wanted to give the imac to a relative. And so, I tried to boot from the original grey mac install dvd to wipe the hardrive and set the imac back to factory specs.
But it wouldn't boot off the dvd. All It would do at restart was to flash slowly back and forth between blank grey screen and black screen. So, I tried the Leopard update dvd. Same results. So I zapped the pram and tried again. Same results.
If I just pushed the start button tho.. the imac would start right up and run fine. However, I didn't want to give it to someone else with all our information on it.
I finally restarted it and held the "T" key to turn it into a giant firewire drive, hooked it up to our other 20" imac, and used the disk utility from the second imac to erase the drive of the first imac. Then I inserted the grey install dvd into the second imac and selected the drive of the first imac and ran the install process.
Now, the first imac won't start up at all. Just a continual grey screen for a bit, than a couple of buzz sounds in the machine and then the black screen... than back again.
It ran great before I erased the drive and re-installed OS 10.5
What's wrong? How do I get the machine to either boot off the install cd?

So, I've figured out a little more on the first machine. It's a 20" 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.5.8.
It ran great. But, I wanted to erase the hard drive and reinstall the OS system before giving it to a relative.
I found that although the optical drive would read and write to normal cds and dvds, the machine would NOT boot from the grey start-up disks I had on hand. ( I have two imacs, and I tried both sets of dvds without success.)
I zapped the PRAM, and used disk utilities via firewire connection from my other 20" imac to check the hardrive and make repairs. Disk Utilities couldn't find any problems. So, using disk utilities from the other imac, I erased the first imac's harddrive and then used the install dvds on the second imac to install the original OS to the hard drive of the first imac.
(looking on the hard drive of the first imac, I can see all the contents)
However, the first machine will not start up. It just switches from grey....to black..... then grey..... and then black again.... over and over
Why won't it boot from the newly installed OS on it's own hard drive?
And Why won't it boot from the original install dvds?
How can I get it to start up again?

How can I get rid of The Grey screen and boot my macbook?

Today I was on my MacBook Pro (bought July 2011) and it went to a blank blue screen. I powered it off and tried to restart it. It loaded the apple and spinning circle but it went to a grey screen and froze there. I've read and tried a lot of different things already but nothing has worked. I did the hardware test and it found no problems. I tried to safeboot it. I tried everything on here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 except the last suggestion (I'd rather not have to lose all my files unless absolutely nesseccary). I also tried the "hold Command + R keys" to try and get to utilities. Anything else out there that I could try? Not sure what the exact operating system is either.

I wouldn't assume that's the hard drive. The fact that the screen turned blue all of a sudden isn't necessarily an indication of a hard drive failure. Check out this post I made yesterday:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21756819#21756819
My personal opinion would be to try and boot from an external hard drive with the appropriate OS installed. With a 2011 model, I would assume that should be Snow Leopard or later. AHT doesn't catch everything, and I don't know if it even does drive scans for bad blocks. I do know for a fact that it pretty much limits itself to digital interfaces and can't go beyond analog driver stages. For example, if the driver stages of a FireWire port or ethernet port are blown, AHT will report them as being OK.
If you got hit by a transient, which could indicate an internal supply problem or a line problem if you were connected to the internet via a wired connection or you were running off the charger, there's no telling what it might have caused the drive to do (if it's the drive) and it could easily cause the screen to suddenly go to blue, but what other damage was done?
My point is that you need to confirm what the source of the problems are. If there's a logic board problem, your drive and data may be OK. If the drive is bad, some of it may still be recoverable. The problem may very well be drive related, but I wouldn't go out and start throwing money at new parts without first confirming what the cause of the problems is.
Hope this helped, and good luck.

Older model iMac. Grey screen, no tones, apple logo and spinner, then shuts down. Tried all greyscreen tips on Apple Website. Suggestions?

Older model iMac. Grey screen, no tones, apple logo and spinner, then shuts down. Tried all greyscreen tips on Apple Website. Do not have start up disc. Do not know what OS it runs. Suggestions?

Since you don't have a startup disc you haven't done ALL of the tips on this page http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
I don't know what you've done but you need to follow the tips listed and that could include possibly erasing and reinstalling the OS. Older model iMac does nothing to help us understand what you're working with. You can call Apple and provide them with your serial number and for a fee they'll ship you a set of original install discs or you could possibly use Snow Leopard which you can get for $20 here http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
You can enter the serial number here for specs on the iMac http://www.everymac.com
And if you don't know where to find the serial number see here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1349

In my Macbook Pro, on a few occassions, the apple menu bar blacks out. its displayed as a negative image. The desktop wallpaper get greyed out and i get a blank screen as wallpaper. No idea why this happens. I reset the system and issue gets resolved.

In my Macbook Pro, on a few occassions, the apple menu bar blacks out. its displayed as a negative image. The desktop wallpaper get greyed out and i get a blank screen as wallpaper. No idea why this happens. I reset the system and issue gets resolved.

AshwinVC wrote:
I reset the system and issue gets resolved.
How?

Start up problem-can't get past Apple grey screen and spinning gear

Upon trying to start up my laptop, got nothing but the apple logo, grey screen and spinning gear. I tried several things to resolve the problem on my own (hardware test said it could not verify the disk/could not start up from the OS X install disk/reset the power mgmt. unit/disconnected all peripherals)and finally went to the Apple store. Genius bar said they were able to start up from their hard drive and suggested that I buy an external hard drive, go home, start up again and back up all files. I bought a My Book. Got home and same thing happened: Apple logo and spinning gear. I am an Apple user of 18 years, but have not had to do much in the way of diagnostics. Have tried fsck routine today that I found on another posting here today. If the Genius guy got it going, I assumed that I could too. I was wrong. Any advice would be appreciated. It looks like this is the end of the road for my Powerbook, but I'd like a shot at recovering data.
Message was edited by: Debbie Wach

Hi Debbie/Gregg -
I may have missed something but can't you just put a new hard drive in your laptops? You may not be able to recover your data but it doesn't mean the end for your computer. The same thing happened to my TiBook and I put a new 120Gig hard drive in and it's had a new lease of life.
I bought a new internal hard drive along with an external enclosure and connected it up to my computer and from there cloned it. Then I transferred the external into the TiBook and put the old drive into the external and I use that as an external now. I realise your hard drives are dead but you could use another computer to so the same thing and just install the OS on it.
I bought this -
http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/productinfo.php?productsid=452
Then followed the instructions here -
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G4-Ti-DVI/HD-Replacement/33/6/
Once your new hard drive is installed you may be able to try and repair the old one in the external enclosure?

Imac gets grey screen and fan runs hard

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for