2009 iMac stuck on grey screen

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Level 1

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2009 iMac stuck on grey screen

Ok so I've googled this and I cannot seem to find anything to help me. I have a 2009 iMac running on Mavericks, whilst I was using it the screen froze, I could still play music, and play a video I was watching and hear it but the picture is frozen. So I held the power button and shut it down, upon restarting it booted as per usual, but now after booting instead of going to the desktop the screen will boot, flash and get stuck on the apple logo. I can still access iTunes and turn the volume and screen brightness up and down, I can also use the cursor, but it I just cannot access the desktop. The HDD was replaced about 6 months ago by apple. Any help would be very much appreciated.

iMac

Posted on Aug 19, 2014 12:46 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Aug 19, 2014 12:50 PM in response to EDPD

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 Lion, 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.

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Aug 19, 2014 5:52 PM in response to EDPD

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.

Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.

Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.

The login screen appears even if you usually login 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.

Test while in safe mode. Same problem?

After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

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Answer 3

EDPD Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 20, 2014 11:00 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi there, thanks for the reply. I managed to start up in safe mode, I verified the disk and repaired it, and also the permissions, everything seems fine there. (S.M.A.R.T Status is verified). I then restarted and it seemed to boot normally, and everything was working fine after a couple of hours I shut the iMac down for the evening but then this morning the same thing happened again. So I did the same thing, booted in to safe mode etc, but upon restarting and it booting normally, after maybe an hour the screen froze again, so back in to safe mode, repair the disk, restart but this time no matter how many times I repair the disk or the permissions I cannot boot on to the desktop unless It's safe mode, so now I'm not too sure what to do.

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Aug 20, 2014 12:14 PM in response to EDPD

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.

Step 1

For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes.)

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamps of the BOOT_TIME log messages, which refer to the times when the system was started. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the last boot time when you had the problem. Select the messages logged before the boot, during the time something abnormal was happening. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

For example, if the system was unresponsive or was failing to shut down for three minutes before you forced a restart, post the messages timestamped within three minutes before the boot time, not after. Please include the BOOT_TIME message at the end of the log extract—not at the beginning.

If there are long runs of repeated messages, please post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.

When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Step 2

In the Console window, select

DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ System Diagnostic Reports

(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of reports. A crash report has a name that begins with the name of the crashed process and ends in ".crash". A panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". A shutdown stall report has a name that ends in ".shutdownstall". Select the most recent of each, if any. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot. It's possible that none of these reports exists.

I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.

If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash or panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.

In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)

Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

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Answer 5

EDPD Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 20, 2014 1:16 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi there, sorry if this isn't of any use, but whilst I was looking at the system diagnostic reports , in the folder in finder there was several crash reports (635) all exactly the same - TorchUpdater_2014-07-21-032119_E-iMac.crash - Could this be the culprit behind the problem?.