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Grey Screen - Won't start up in OS9

A couple of days ago I tried to start my computer up and was greeted with a grey screen. It wouldn't go any further. This has happened before and zapping the PRAM usually fixed it. This time it did not.

Here is what I've tried :

- Zapping PRAM
- Restting the PMU (the computer worked for a day afterwards)
- Replaced the PRAM battery
- Tried holding down the "shift" key when starting up, the screen stayed grey and didn't progress.

The computer WILL start up in OS 10.3.9 when I hold option down and select the start up disk, and it seems to works fine. It will restart into OSX, and remain in OSX, without incident, as long as it's selected as the startup dick.

The computer will NOT boot up using the OS9 CD. When I restart (from OS X) and hold the "c" key I get a grey screen. When I hold down the "option" key, while restarting, I have the option to choose the CD, but it gives me the grey screen after hitting the arrow.

It will boot up using the Hardware test CD, it passed all of the tests (including the extended)

One time today, it got to he point of loading the OS9 extensions and stalled. About a minute or so later the cursor tuned into a little "bomb". After that one time the screen went back to being grey each time I tried starting up.

Does anyone have any advice? I figure that since I can use OSX I should be able to do something.

G4 Dual 1Ghz Quicksilver Mac OS 9.2.x

G4 Dual 1ghz, Powerbook 667

Posted on Nov 11, 2006 4:37 PM

Reply
8 replies

Nov 12, 2006 1:03 PM in response to Dave Hamilton

Dave - thanks for the response.

I just restarted and held down the keys mentioned above to reset the firmware and it looks like there might be an error.

It says:

"USB Setup Error: 5c000000 82000
USB Setup Error: 5c000000 82005"

This repeats about 20 times down the screen.

After that it says:

"4.5.5 failed to respond"

Then it has the Powermac bootROM info, followed by "welcome to Open firmware", etc....

Perhaps the USB set up is part of the problem? If the USB set up extension are the first one to load in OS9, that would explain it got stuck loading up the extensions, correct?

Although my keyboard did work and it's USB.

I'll try the commands and hope for the best.

Nov 12, 2006 3:29 PM in response to Warped1

I tried resetting the PMU after trashing the prefs mentioned above and optimizing the startup drive.

I've done everything is this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2450101&#2450101

I'm still getting the grey screen.

There was nothing hooked up to the computer except the monitor, mouse and keyboard. I tried to start it up without any of the PCI cards as well.

Do I have any other options before taking it into a repair shop (something I'd rather not do)?

Nov 12, 2006 7:42 PM in response to Warped1

After a few hours I tried the computer and it started up. I was just about to take it apart, to get it ready to go to the repair shop tomorrow, and decided to give it one last try.

Is this because I should have waited to boot up the computer after resetting the PMU? If so, I wonder why it didn't work this morning.

This very same thing happened last week too, so I am a little nervous about it happening again soon.

Also it seems to take a little longer to startup, and I noticed a flicker while Mac OS and OS 9 logo were showing, just before the extensions started to load. This was consistent.

G4 Dual 1ghz, Powerbook 667

Nov 16, 2006 7:22 PM in response to Warped1

My problem with the gray screen has surfaced again, but after some more research on a different forum I found some very interesting information

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-45223.html

I appears that the Apple 17" studio Monitor could have something to do with this. I don't know this to be fact, but it appears to be true, according to the thread I pasted above.

Does anyone else know about this?

Grey Screen - Won't start up in OS9

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