I've been successfully running 10.3.7 on my old G4 450 dual for a couple of weeks now until two days ago when I fired it up and it stalled on the startup screen at the poin tin startup where the screen is light gray and you see a dark gray Apple in the middle. Ordinarily a spinning cog-like icon spins briefly then the system starts up. However, suddenly all I get is this aforementioned screen - no spinning cog icon - and I'm stuck right there. I can zap the PRAM which makes me think the system is still there yet can't get any farther than this gray screen.

Tried booting up holding the C key using TechTool Pro 4, DiskWarrior for OSX and the OSX install disk - nothing. Same problem. Tried replacing the clock battery - no luck. Wondering if anyone has a clue whether this sounds like a software or hardware problem and any possible solutions you might be willing to share. A friend said this sounds like a fried logic board but wasn't sure. Can anyone help?

Many thanks!

Gary

Your friend is probably right, unfortunately. Since you can't boot from either a CD or the hard drive, it doesn't look good. Just a thought: did you reset PMU when you replaced the battery?

Did you try booting into safe mode?
reboot holding down CMD-s
At the command prompt type sbin/fsck -yf
hit the return key
keep doing it until you get no errors.
To restart just type in reboot and hit return

You can also try this
reboot while holding down the CMD-OPT-o and f keys. o as in oscar
at the prompt type reset nvram then hit return
they type reset all then hit return

unfortunately i am having the same problem as instantgp. i have a G4 powerbook. sometimes i get an all grey screen, sometimes the apple and sometimes the folder/question mark like on the old macs. i cannot boot into safe mode or reset PRAM while rebooting, nothing seems to happen when i hold the shift, command-s, or command-opt-p-r during startup. when i try to reboot with disk warrior or techtool, i hold down the c button and eventually a screen pops up telling me to restart in 4 or 5 different languages. finally, i tried the command-opt-o-f as in cobra's last post and at least got to the point where i was able to type in the commands. the computer rebooted after i typed in reset-all, but still i only get grey screen or apple forever. (all peripherals have been disconnected for these measures). I have 3 questions. 1. why do things like this only happen on holidays? 2. what do i do next??? 3. how is your situation, instantgp?

It sounds like what your describing is kernal panics. Screen goes gray with a black box asking to restart? Have you installed any new ram lately? If not you could have a bad chip! Try taking some chips out, swaping some around?

See if this article about kernel panics helps.

You might try disconnecting unnecessary hardware to try to isolate the problem. First, unplug all USB and firewire devices, leaving only your monitor attached, (no kbd/mouse) and see if it boots to the HD. If not, reattach keyboard/mouse and unplug your hard drive's IDE cable and then try to boot off a CD. If that doesn't work, try removing all but one stick of your memory and boot - if that doesn't work, remove the remaining stick and place one of the first removed sticks in and try that.

Without spare parts to try, that's about all the hardware isolation you can perform. I've seen a number of processor cards go bad in the DP G4's, hopefully it's not that.

Many thanks your various responses to my original post on my G4/450 dual running 10.3.7 not booting beyond the OSX gray screen with the dark gray apple with <no> rotating startup icon. I tried just about everything you all suggested with no luck. I live in San Jose not far from Apple so finally, in near desperation, I called my buddy J (owns a mostly Mac printing company) who is closely connected to various folks at Apple and, as a secondary job, maintains Mac networks for various companies in San Francisco. J is hard to reach or I would have called him first. J said "bring it over." J's first question was "Did you install 10.3.6 in this machine?" which he then proceeded to trash as "crap." I don't think I did - I think I went from 10.3.5 to 10.3.7. Still, J somehow <just knew> this was a software issue rather than a hardware issue. J felt the fact that I could hear the thing gong upon startup (and upon zapping the PRAM) and that this machine started up as far as showing me the gray Apple screen + dark gray apple minus the revolving startup icon indicated a software issue. (Also, I'd told him the various things I'd already tried as recommended here on this thread)

The fix.... I hope I have this correctly - I could have missed something since J moves quickly. J pulled out a Powerbook and launched it as a target drive and was somehow able to see the contents of the startup drive on my busted G4. He announced: "It's a software issue." and proceeded to reinstall the base 10.3 OS. Presto!!!! Back in business - no hardware issues!

No dead logic board. No deceased graphics card. No dead RAM. No dead clock battery. Software... I suppose the moral of this specific freakout is some of the OS updates we've seen recently have not been all we might expect. If you see the gray screen/dark gray Apple and no revolving startup icon it might just be the software - you'll have to figure a way to reinstall. I just had my 13 year old update the machine from directly from 10.3 base to 10.3.7 and thus far all is humming along perfectly. (phew...)

Thank you all for your various good ideas! They didn't work in this situation but might work in another scenario so many thanks for your efforts to help out!

Relieved... Gary

I am having similar problems with my G3 Powerbook. I can't get past the white screen with grey apple and spinning circle. I was able to zap the pram from booting into open firmware, but I get no command line prompt when I boot into File System Check, single user mode. The lines of text show up, but then the prompt seems to hang. No blinking. And I can't type into it or even use the return key with any response.

Maybe whatever the solution is with your machine may help mine as well.

Emcee wrote:

>I am having similar problems with my G3 Powerbook. I can't get past the white screen with grey apple and spinning >circle. I was able to zap the pram from booting into open firmware, but I get no command line prompt when I boot into >File System Check, single user mode. The lines of text show up, but then the prompt seems to hang. No blinking. And I >can't type into it or even use the return key with any response. Maybe whatever the solution is with your machine may >help mine as well.

Hello Emcee,

We did resolve the issue. It turned out the problem with my G4 discontuing startup at the 10.3.7 gray screen with dark gray apple was an Mac OS software issue. (I was not getting the revolving startup icon - just a gray screen with darker gray apple) The friend who correctly diagnosed and repaired it (a major Mac mechanic) reinstalled 10.3.7 which totally resolved the issue. His suspicion is that previous OS updates (paritcularly 10.3.6 but possibly also 10.3.5 contained issues which did not blend well when 10.3.7 was installed. Said he'd had to repair multiple machines which were dead on startup (ie, gray screens) and thus far it has always been that 10.3.7 needed to be reinstalled on a clean drive. In doing this reinstall (clean install) we did have to erase the contents of the startup but, fortunately, my startup drive contained only the OS - no stored data. I've learned from past disasters it's best to put <only> the OS and apps on the startup drive and to store data on other drives hence I use a rather small 36gb 10,000 rpm drive as my startup drive. (small so I'm not tempted to store data in it)

Have you tried booting from the OSX CD? If your machine will boot from the OSX system disc erase the drive contents and start from scratch with a fresh 10.3.7 clean install. If your machine will not boot with the OSX CD you may have to do was we did and connect another Mac to the fouled up machine from which you can install 10.3.7.

Hope this helps!

Gary