Quicksilver wont boot up, firewire problems as well.

A couple days ago, the firewire on my motherboard stopped functioning and no longer showed up in System Profiler. I tried installing a pci firewire card and booted up fine twice showed up on System Profiler but did not funtion, I also added two 128 MB RAM sticks at that time which seemed to work fine, and showed up on System Profiler Now when I turn on the computer gray spinny screen shows for a while than a light blue screen with cursor but nothing else...
Previously, the main hard drive died and was replaced. I've had no problems except this since then.
Could someone please help?
Thanks!

Try things in Apple doc.#106464 for your startup issue.
Also, try using Disk Utility to repair your startup disk (hard drive) as shown in Dr.Smokes Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption. His link will help walk you thru it.
I'm throwing alot of stuff at you here. A bad PRAM (also called clock) battery can cause startup issues AND FireWire not to show.
I would check it first. When mine went, I had no response from my Mac at all; just a light on my power button; absolutely no boot at all.
Check out things in Texas Mac Mans tutorial on the subject. His tutorial is a little dated (don't believe it even mentions G5's) but the info in it, except SMU not being included, still applies.
If you still have FW troubles, read on;
Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try. Yours is the 10.3.9 Combo update (that's what your specs. say). Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

Similar Messages

Quicksilver wont boot after using compressed air to clear dust

Help,
My Quicksilver was waking from sleep on its own. I opened it up and found it was extremely dusty so I blew all the dust out with compressed air. I was very careful not to touch anything. It booted up but hung up, I couldn't force quit so I shut down using the power button, waited five minutes and restarted. The power light came on but went out again almost immediately. I can hear fans running and peeking inside I see a red light on but no video to monitor.
There has been a problem from day one with start up hanging but many attempts by apple tech's could never find the problem. They changed out the orig. HD. but It didn't fix the problem. I learned to live with the problem and added external drives for backup. Unfortunately one drive is SATA. I am using my G4 notebook but have no access to the SATA drive.
I need the Quicksilver back. Does anyone have a suggestion I might try.
Thanks in advance for your comments.
BJZTX
Houston
G4 Quicksilver Mac OS X (10.2.x) G4 Notebook 10.3

Hi, BJZTX -
Try resetting the PMU -
Article #95037 - G4 (AGP) - Resetting PMU
Note - the procedure in that article applies to all G4s except the )PCI) model; although the location of the PMU button varies, it is generally near the battery.
Try rolling the battery in its holder, to ensure good contact.
Check to make sure all internal cables are well-seated - that usually entails breaking and making the connections (do that with the machine powered off and unplugged).
Some dust can be conductive - make sure no dust clumps got blown into the pins for RAM, CPU, PCI sockets, etc.
Ditto the jumper pin blocks on the drives. While there, make sure no jumpers got dislodged or blown off.

MacBook Pro WONT boot when Firewire Hard Drive is attached....?

is anyone else having a problem with Booting up their MacBook Pro when they have a firewire device attached?
I use a Lacie 400Gb External drive and it just wont get past the start screen (grey screen, before the Apple even appears), unless I unplug the firewire drive first...
I know Apple will fix these bugs, so I really shouldn't moan... but I just wanna double check others are having this problem and I haven't got a dud one!! (or I'll take it back to the Apple Store ASAP!)
Thanks!!!

I have this about 50% of the time! I generally have my FW400 drive hooked up, and if I forget, it may or may not boot. I have sent an email about that to apple. Oh, if I was in Windows last, it is not a problem since it remembers it...
Bob

Macbook 27" monitor wont boot OS X problem?

My macbook hasn't been connected to the internet for a while and it was working fine today until I connected it to wifi, as soon as I did that it shut off. I tried turning it on and a get a grey screen with a colorful wheel with a pop up that says "The OS X installation could not be complete" and then the computer shuts off. I cannot click the options that the pop up has available either. Any idea's on how to fix this?

It would seem from the dialog message you got that the computer had been in the process of updating OS X. In any case I would suggest that's exactly what you do. What version of OS X is installed on it?
Reinstall Snow Leopard 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.
Reinstall Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. 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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Mountain Lion or Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Complicated problem :: Powerbook g4 wont boot

Hi!
I have an older powerbook g4 (circa 2005, OS X 10.4) that i picked up on the cheap for my younger brother. The CD/DVD drive does not accept disks, but i have the repair/reinstall disks. When i purchased the machine, it worked pretty well (i upgraded the memory etc), but one day after a power failure (the battery is completely shot and needs to be replaced, but ive got to ensure the machine will boot first) I discovered that it wont boot past a certain point. A verbose boot outputs the following error repeatedly "can't exec getty '/system/library/coreservices/loginwindow.app/contents/macos/loginwindow' for port /dev/console: exec format error". While trying to boot, i can SSH into the machine, and get around just fine.
I also have a macbook (10.5.6). What im wondering about is the possiblity of using the CDDVD drive on the macbook to run the install disks across the network into the powerbook, or to somehow image 10.4 and pass it back to the powerbook over netboot / netrestore.
Thanks!

Unfortunately the MacBook and Powerbook are different enough that you can't do this.
Your best bet is to get an external Firewire optical drive to do it.
http://www.macsales.com/ sells plenty that are Mac compatible.

Hey Guys i have a problem with my mac since last month and it wont boot up it freezes in a grey apple logo and and spinning gear any body know how to fix this?

Hey Guys i have a problem with my mac since last month and it wont boot up it freezes in a grey apple logo and and spinning gear any body know how to fix this?

Take each of these steps that you haven't already tried. Stop when the problem is resolved.
Step 1
The first step in dealing with a boot failure is to secure your data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since your last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to boot. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in the support article linked below, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.”
How to back up and restore your files
b. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, boot the non-working Mac in target disk mode by holding down the key combination command-T at the startup chime. Connect the two Macs with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable. The internal drive of the machine running in target mode will mount as an external drive on the other machine. Copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode
c. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
Press and hold the power button until the power shuts off. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to boot, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Use a different keyboard and/or mouse, if those devices are wired. If you can boot now, one of the devices you disconnected, or a combination of them, is causing the problem. Finding out which one is a process of elimination.
Before reconnecting an external storage device, make sure that your internal boot volume is selected in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences.
Step 3
Boot in safe mode.* The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Post for further instructions.
When you boot in safe mode, it's normal to see a dark gray progress bar on a light gray background. If the progress bar gets stuck for more than a few minutes, or if the system shuts down automatically while the progress bar is displayed, your boot volume is damaged and the drive is probably malfunctioning. In that case, go to step 5.
If you can boot and log in now, empty the Trash, and then open the Finder Info window on your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) Check that you have at least 9 GB of available space, as shown in the window. If you don't, copy as many files as necessary to another volume (not another folder on the same volume) and delete the originals. Deletion isn't complete until you empty the Trash again. Do this until the available space is more than 9 GB. Then reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)
If the boot process hangs again, the problem is likely caused by a third-party system modification that you installed. Post for further instructions.
Step 4
Sometimes a boot failure can be resolved by resetting the NVRAM.
Step 5
Launch Disk Utility in Recovery mode (see above for instructions.) Select your startup volume, then run Repair Disk. If any problems are found, repeat until clear. If Disk Utility reports that the volume can't be repaired, the drive has malfunctioned and should be replaced. You might choose to tolerate one such malfunction in the life of the drive. In that case, erase the volume and restore from a backup. If the same thing ever happens again, replace the drive immediately.
This is one of the rare situations in which you should also run Repair Permissions, ignoring the false warnings it produces. Look for the line "Permissions repaired successfully" at the end of the output. Then reboot as usual.
Step 6
Boot into Recovery again. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
Step 7
Repeat step 6, but this time erase the boot volume in Disk Utility before installing. The system should automatically reboot into the Setup Assistant. Follow the prompts to transfer your data from a backup.
Step 8
If you get this far, you're probably dealing with a hardware fault. Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested.

Old mac wont boot xcpt via firewire, want to move iphoto files from old to new, where are the pics stored?

old mac wont boot xcpt via firewire, want to move iphoto files from old to new, where are the pics stored?

Photos are stored in your home folder (~pictures).
Barry

Iq506 problem wont boot, i need a recovery disks please

I have a prob with my touchsmart iq506 it wont boot and i think i need recovery disks, i tried ordering but it appears no longer available, can anyone help? pls

Hi
As you mentioned disc was not available i was able to find a link for you.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-TouchSmart-IQ506-Driver-Recovery-Disc-CD-DVD-/230849382523
Let us know how it goes!
"I work for HP."
****Click the (purple thumbs up icon in the lower right corner of a post) to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
Regards
Manjunath

IMac problem, keep freeze and wont boot

my iMac was updating latest iphoto raw compability update,
then my imac turn into around 3 hours machine that frezee up after 3-4 hours of normal used (itunes and brosing),
and it wont shutdown, I force the power button to make it off.
after that,
it wont boot to mac osx SL
flashing folder with question mark on it appear.
but I certainly could boot from SL installation DVD,
I have to wait half to one hour for normal start up again,
if less than half hour, it wont boot to mac osx..
how strange is that?
I have to wait everytime..
can anyone fix this?
I thought this problem connect with my bootcamp with win7,
because I can't boot to win7 also,
I have tried to disabled auto mounting NTFS with fstab, it wont solve the problem at all,
anyone can help me?
is format it all will help?
Message was edited by: Hudi

Before deciding that you can't replace the drive yourself, visit the following site and find the step by step instructions for replacing the drive yourself:
http://www.ifixit.com/
If you see the instructions and feel that you can replace the drive yourself, you will save money that way. I'm not that familiar with modern iMacs, but I know it was very easy to replace the drive in my old iMac. It may not be as hard to do as you think. If you want extra help, you can post questions on the iMac forum.
If you still don't feel like it is something you can do yourself, try looking for an AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) in your area and see what it might cost to have the AASP do the replacement. Often an AASP can do a repair for less money than Apple, and they will usually be willing to install a drive that you have obtained elsewhere for a reasonable price. From what I have read on these forums, many people have used AASP's to install bigger and faster drives on their machines.
Definitely contact Western Digital about your drive. Usually WD drives come with a 3 year warranty, and if the drive fails before then, WD will replace the drive. KT has mentioned that the drive apparently is not under warranty, but might qualify for some sort of an upgrade. Before shopping elsewhere, check to see if this upgrade might entitle you to a very good deal on a replacement drive or something of that nature.
Good luck!

G5 Wont boot.

I've searched and i've searched, and i can't really find a similar problem to this. It would seem most G5 boot issues are ram related..
Anyway. It's a G5 1.8 SP, launch model. Yep, about 7 years old now.
Running 10.5.8
The boot HD is a 500GB and only has 1.8GB free. Also have a 160GB for files which has about 50 meg free.
3.5GB ram (6x 512's, 2x 256's).
Graphics card is a radeon 9800 pro, with a noisy broken fan.
So. This computer has had a hard life. Seen lots of lan parties, and used to play allot of games back in the day. Up untill recently (say, the last year) it was working flawlessly. Then one day after going to a lan, it wouldn't boot. I reseated the graphics card, and it worked fine. Moved it again a few months later, and same deal. It's now got to the point where i'm affraid to move it, incase it stops working.
Well, last night i hopped under my desk to boot up the file G3 (which boots up flawlessly every time). I sat back down in front of the G5 again, and it had frozen while i was under the desk (i didn't even touch it!). The mouse was working, although it was extremely erratic, it would zig zag accross the screen while moving it. Everything else had frozen dead though.
So i rebooted it, and black screen. **** it. I reseated the graphics card, and it seemed to work. It got to the grey screen fine, with working pinwheel. Then went to the aqua blue back ground and stopped there, The screen would 'refresh' i guess you could say ever 20 seconds or so (go blank, flash, and come back as aqua blue). The mouse worked fine also.
I tried reseating the card again. Booted holding CMDSHIFT+PR, that rebooted successfully, but now it won't go past the grey screen. It just pinwheels for eternity. I got out the leopard disc and tried booting off that, but the disc drive appeared to be having troubles (the DVD drive has always had issues - it's a sony)
So i tried something else, and got the old Nvidia FX5200 that came with the computer, and tried booting of the disc again, and it worked! The boot disc works fine. There's no graphical glitches, no problems at all. I ran the disc utility, it reported no problems. But there were quite a few permissions broken, that it could NOT fix. A few front row (as in the program) permissions, a 'backrow' frameworks, and a few other frameworks that error'd.
Ran the profiler, and all the ram shows up, and says OK. It's also reading and using the nvidia just fine, despite it being unused for some 5-6 years.
TL;DNR
G5 launch model has had some issues with the graphics card in the last year.
Last night it died again, reseated card and now OSX only boots to the grey screen, with a working pinwheel.
Installed the old FX5200 graphics card
It succesfully boots of the leopard disc, ram appears to be all in order, Disc utility came up with some bad permissions, but reported no problems with 'repair disc'
The computer still wont boot past the grey screen, even with the different graphics card.
It doesn't boot in safe mode either. Infact, that only makes things worse, the fans do the spool up thing that happens when you get a kernal panic.
Any ideas?
Message was edited by: Ducksnake

Well i managed to clear 20 gigs off, this is the most space the computers had in probably a year, i know it can (normally) boot with that much space as it has done so with less for a long time now.
It's gone back to the blue screen. It will get the grey spash, with pin wheel. moments later it flashes to aqua blue as it normally would when loading OSX, but it stops there. And will flash every 20 seconds or so and try again, for infinity.
I re-installed the 9800, and same deal.
I'm also running it with the boot disc at the moment, and it's all running fine, so i thing the 9800 is ok.
I'm going to try and repair the disc and permissions again, and see if it has some more success now it's got a bit of room to play with.

How to undo boot camp, wont boot from install disk in dvd drive

A few months ago I went through trying out boot camp and parallels. Now, I think something is messed up. I dont need either right now, so I just want to wipe out the whole system, repartition the drive, and restore to a blank new install of os x 10.5 leopard.
But when I put in the install disk, it wont boot up off it.
I tried holding down the c key while powering it up, and it just cycles through: hearing the drive whirl, a bling sound, and then repeating it again while the screen is blank. Finally, I held down the click button on the touch pad so it would eject the install disk.
Maybe this will help someone recognize part of the problem. Ever since messing around with boot camp and parallels, my machine wont "reboot". To reboot it, I tell it to reboot, then it hangs on the star like screen, then I have to hold the power button down, then if I do nothing, it tries to boot, but ends up in a dos looking screen saying no bootable device. So when I power it back up, I hold down the alt key, and then I have one choice: the hard drive. I pick that and it boots up ok.
So... I thought, well, maybe the boot camp is still messed up; maybe I should undo boot camp. When I start the boot camp assistant, there is only a "partition" and "back" button; nothing to "restore" the hard drive to just one partition.
What can I do? I want to wipe the drive and install a fresh install from my install disk.

Forgot to specify:
Im using an older Unibody Macbook (back when they were not all macbook pro's) 2008ish with Snow leopard 1.6.8
The thread you linked me to, Eric, shows the guy 'Niganit' with the eXACT SAME PROBLEM as me! He seems to have found out the problem but I dont see his resolve.
I just dont have the option to install windows 7 in any other form that a cd
a picture;

I have a Imac 8,1 That wont boot.

I have a Imac 8,1 that wont boot.
3.06Ghz, Nvidia 8800
I believe i have 2 problems.
First this is what ive already done:
I ran an extensive hardware test, no problem
In disk utility I erased my harddrive and clean installed Mavericks,
Verified and repaired disk, no problems
Verified and repaired permissions, no problems
Disk boots up fine when running on MacBookPro through Firewire
Zapped PRAM/NVRAM plenty
After upgrade I can no longer boot into safe mode, Stalls after 25%
Can no longer use CMD-R
Can no longer use Apple Hardware Test
Doesnt seem like I can update firmware from disk by holding down the power button. not sure im using the right disk either.
These problems probably stem from running complex graphics on a windows 7 partitions I used to have.
     First off I think my GPU is out. I get Thick Green lines down the screen that are not from screen damage straight from startup.
After Chime the apple logo pops up and loads but after a while the wheel stops and the computer will reboot moments after. Im hoping this is a Firmware problem and I dont have to replace my GPU. My computer has booted up with the lines before and I dont think its the cause for not booting but im no professional. Before I updated to Mavericks This Problem already existed. Can a failing GPU cause boots to fail?
     During hardware test the green lines would go away and I would have a clean screen.
I loaded Mavericks from a USB drive from there onto the newly erased harddrive (32 Write erase). Everything was going great until I got close to the end of the loading bar for the setup and it froze. The colors on my screen displayed everything but with the colors messed up into a rainbow oval on the top half of the screen. I rebooted and suddenly I cant boot from anything. Harddrive, Install Disk, or USB
     So I plugged up my firewire and got on a MacBookPro with Mavericks and erased the disk again. Then I installed Mavericks flawlessly and it will boot from the MacBookPro but not from the Imac.
When I boot in Verbose mode I get an error that says
BootCacheControl: Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist:2 no such file or directory
Then
NVDAStartup: Official (im guessing thats my GPU)
and a bunch of SMC:smcReadKeyAction ERRORS
and Sandbox: authd(##) deny file-write & deny file-read errors
Im thinking I need a new GPU but I want to be absolutely certain before I spend anything on replacing parts.
Could this be a EFI Firmware Problem?
like a Firmware/boot data problem from a bad ESP (I dont know what is what really).
If all this is part of the GPU it would totally make sense to just go ahead and replace it if thats the case. But im no expert, What do you think?

Very simple take it to an Apple Store or AASP and have it professionally diagnosed. Anything else would be guessing. Do NOT spend a penny on it until it is professionaly diagnosed otherwise you stand and excellent chance of throwing good money after bad.

Early 2011 2GHz Macbook pro distorted blue screen then wont boot, 3 times in last 2 weeks

I have an early 2011, 2GHz macbook pro (15' model with ati radeon graphics). It was running fine for the last two years. Over the last couple of weeks, following things happen:
1. I was running on bootcamp windows, browsing and some flash content was open, suddenly distorted blue stripes appear and it froze. Force shut down using power button, turn on again and it wont boot on windows or mac, or recovery partition or from the dvd. Tried for about 4 hours, after nvram, pram reset, it was able to safe boot, then run disk utility to verify and repair the disk, it said that there were problems with hard drive and fixed,then booted normally.
2. I thought that the problem might be because I was on windows, so took a back up of the windows drive, erased it and installed windows 8 using bootcamp. It ran well for an week. After that, once I connected it with the tv using HDMI to watch a video, after I disconnected it, the screen was garbled over the windows start screen, but I was able to command restart normally. After restart, it wont boot to windows or mac.
3. After several hours of trying, i was able to boot using the dvd this time, it said it 'can not install mac on the hard drive', erased the hard drive and it was able to install the os (snow leopard). After completing install, logged in to app store to download previously purchased mountain lion. Then ran it to upgrade the os, after the upgrade was completed, at the point when it prompts for apple id and password to set up icloud, it again froze with distorted blue screen. Shut down forcefully. Then turn on again and it wont boot. After the white screen and the sound, it shows the apple logo and spinning wheel for a while, then a bright white screen and nothing happens.
Can anybody help reading the symptoms?

I have the Early 2011 2GHz Macbook Pro and I have the same problem too.
I switched out the logicboard a month ago and today the graphics just went distorted.
Any solutions? Now I'm thinking it is the Graphics Card.

My iMac wont boot up properly. Stops at background pic, no dock, only little apple show up top and cursor sticks on little spinning wheel. Have to shut down manually in back and reboot to get it to work. Any ideas why this sometimes happens?

I'm running OSX 10.9.1 (13B42)
My problem is that occasionally my Mac wont boot properly. It gets to the background picture where the dock should open but it freezes there. The little apple shows up top left but nothing else and the cursor shows as the little spinning wheel that wont do anything. I can't click on the apple to restart, I have to switch off in back and then start up again. It usally boots all the way after that but I'm worried there's something up since this seems to be happeneing more frequently. Also I'm worried that having to manually shut down like that will somehow damage the software in time?
I tried a disk verify but there were no repairs needed. I repaired disk permissions too just in case but it still seems to happen every once in a while.
I've noticed recently that it happens the next reboot after I've been streaming movies online if that helps. Is there any reason for this and anything i can do to stop it in the future?

Thanks Paul, just ran the etrecheck you recommended and got this:
Hardware Information:
          iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
          iMac - model: iMac12,1
          1 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 4 cores
          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
          AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 512 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 0:45:16
Disk Information:
          ST3500418AS disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (350.35 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5690H
USB Information:
          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
          Samsung SCX-4600 Series
          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Kernel Extensions:
          com.sophos.kext.sav          (8.0.14)
Startup Items:
          MobileBrServ: Path: /Library/StartupItems/MobileBrServ
Problem System Launch Daemons:
Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.anchorfree.ajaxserver.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.sophos.autoupdate.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.sophos.intercheck.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.sophos.notification.plist 3rd-Party support link
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.sophos.uiserver.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[...]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.divx.agent.postinstall.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
          BitTorrent
Internet Plug-ins:
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 3rd-Party support link
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          OVSHelper: Version: 1.1 3rd-Party support link
          Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          DivXBrowserPlugin: Version: 2.2 3rd-Party support link
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.0.0 3rd-Party support link
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          DivX 3rd-Party support link
          Flash Player 3rd-Party support link
          Flip4Mac WMV 3rd-Party support link
          Growl 3rd-Party support link
Bad Fonts:
          None
Old Applications:
          /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus
                    SophosAntiVirus:          Version: 8.0.8.1 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    SophosAutoUpdate:          Version: 8.0.15 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    SophosUIServer:          Version: 8.0.21 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    InterCheck:          Version: 8.0.8.1 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          VLC:          Version: 2.0.1 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          Sophos Anti-Virus:          Version: 8.0.21 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          Spotify:          Version: 0.8.4.93.gd9f49c35 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          Install Spotify:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    /Users/[redacted]/Downloads/Programs/Install Spotify.app
Time Machine:
          Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU:
               2%          WindowServer
               2%          EtreCheck
               0%          Google Chrome
               0%          hidd
               0%          SophosUIServer
Top Processes by Memory:
          438 MB          firefox
          139 MB          InterCheck
          119 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          106 MB          Google Chrome
          78 MB          mds_stores
Virtual Memory Information:
          370 MB          Free RAM
          1.59 GB          Active RAM
          1.25 GB          Inactive RAM
          813 MB          Wired RAM
          397 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs
I have no idea what all the means, lol.

My early 2008 3.1, 2.8 Ghz wont boot up.

     My early 2008 Mac Pro, 3.1, 2.8 Ghz will not boot up. I get the chime then the gray screen, then it continues to boot for approx. 15 seconds after which the gray screen freezes up. Previous to this condition I started getting a half orange frozen screen that would jump up and down while I was using the computer. Also, there were times during normal use where the screen would freeze with lots of lines all over that were small dashes. And now the computer wont boot past the gray apple screen. I have tried "C" boot from the install disc, "Shift" boot, "Option Boot", "Command-Control", "Command-Control-P-R", and multiple normal reboots and nothing past the gray screen. The only "glimmer of hope" is that when I do a boot from the Install CD, "C" or "Shift" I get a box which says I have to restart my computer using the "reset button" ? or pressing the power button for 2 seconds which led me back to having to restart and the gray screen situation all over. Thanks, I have a feeling I know what you are going to say. God Bless.

Dear Grant,
     Thank You for your quick reply; I believe your right, Sounds like this is just the normal response for problems like mine. I am hearing more and more about the video cards that were implanted into these Mac's. One guy said "don't even bother, get a new computer and save yourself the expense of future cards."
     And when you think about the behavior of my computer it makes so much sense. The computer starts up just fine, you get the chime, it loads to the next correct screen, and continues to boot up until its time for the video card to start spitting out video, then it freezes up.
     Excellent, I hope all is well.
Thank You very much,
God Bless All,
Bob F.

Quicksilver wont boot up, firewire problems as well.

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