grey screen on startup - safe boot works

Question

grey screen on startup - safe boot works

Hi. I have a Mac Pro (2008) that starts up with the apple logo and the spiining wheel. Then the screen goes blank. I have tried everything at:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Interestingly it does work in safe boot mode (but lots of the functionality isn't there).

Disk utility doesn't find any problems. Hardware check from the original disks is very slow but says the hardware is working.

I even got a new disk and put a clean install of Mountain Lion, and got the same behaviour.

I think I'd like to try various options of what is disabled by safe mode, to find the culprit, but I can't seem to find what that may be.

Thanks,

David

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 5, 2012 10:34 PM

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Answer 1

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Dec 5, 2012 10:53 PM in response to David in Vancouver

That suggests that the problem is local to your user account rather than is system wide.

First thing to do is start up in Safe Mode, then go to

 > System Preferences... Users & Groups | Login items

Remove everything in that list, then restart the mac normally and see if it boots.

If not, post back and will look at a few other places that might be

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Answer 2

Dec 6, 2012 9:17 AM in response to softwater

It still doesn't boot; just a grey screen after the apple logo and spinning wheel. I also turned off "automatic login", so the problem occurs before the login.

Thanks

David

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Dec 6, 2012 10:10 AM in response to David in Vancouver

Have you tried setting up another user account and seeing if it still acts the same? A follow up to softwater's thought.

Here is another thread with some other suggestions:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3858458?answerId=18061754022#18061754022

If you monitor the "More Like This" box, perhaps you'll find a thread that will help.

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Answer 4

Dec 6, 2012 1:12 PM in response to Eric Root

I did something better; I erased the disk and did a clean install of Mountain Lion. (I had previously bought a new disk becuase I though that it might be a disk failure). But I still get the same problem. In fact I got the problem during the install. But I could finish the install doing safe boot. Again, I can do a safe boot, but not a standard one. And this occurs before the login.

The hardware check from the original disk says that there are no problems with the hardware.

I will now try a clean install of Snow Leopard and see whether that works.

I'm guessing that it is a hardware problem, because Mountain Lion has worked fine for a few months. But I've no hints as to what it may be.

Thanks again,

David

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