why do my top screens go gray?

Question

Level 2

174 points

why do my top screens go gray?

This seems strange to me. I'm using 10.5.8 on an early 2008 Mac Pro. Lately I find that after a few seconds on MOST foreground application screens that they go gray after a few seconds of inactivity. In other words in order to click in a new field or scroll I first have to re select the application to bring it back to the front (in other words, to make the application "active") and then take my action.

I find this weird and disturbing.

Any thoughts?

Pete

Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.8), 32GB RAM, iPhone 4S

Posted on Dec 3, 2012 3:59 AM

Reply

Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Dec 3, 2012 11:43 AM in response to Peter Durso

Hi Pete, this is a new one on me, but what are the Sleep setting for the Display/brightness?

One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...

PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive

Reboot, test again.

If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed.

Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.

Reply

Answer 2

Peter Durso Author

Level 2

174 points

Dec 7, 2012 9:46 AM in response to Peter Durso

I may not have explained my dilema well. The area that gets gray is the title strip at the top of the top most application's window. The rest of the screen is just fine. If I need to click on a check box I have to click twice - once to "rectivate" the application and a second time to actualy click in the box. If I am typing a sentence or two if the window decides to deactivate I get a series of beeps as I keep typing and I then have click in the window with the arrow to re-actvate the window.

I hope this all makes sense.

Pete

Reply

Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Dec 7, 2012 10:27 AM in response to Peter Durso

Pete, I haven't seen that in 10.5.x, but it's almost identical to a silly feature in 10.8.5/10.8.2, where if the cursor drifts off the active app, typing will cease & you get the beeps, except the window isn't grayed, it still looks active/front.

Does it do it in Safe Mode?

Reply