_jaguar hangs with grey apple screen

D

Daisy

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please help ...

my powerbook g4 titanium (1st series) hangs with grey apple screen after new installed jaguar - any ideas?

installer said everything ok. restart doesn't help.
firmware update? yes
installed on 1st partition? yes
installed on fresh formatted partition? yes
tried repair with disk tools? yes
tried installing again? yes (3 times)
any extra hardware installed? - no
enough memory? yes (768 MB)
10.1 ran ok on this machine


many thx for your help in advance
 
bad memory. remove all the chips that didn't come with the computer. i'm fairly sure this is the culprit.
 
My Dual G4 450 did this on monday and it turned out there is a bad spot on my HD that any time anything tries to access that spot it will hang forever. After I swaped out the hard drive for a new one I was able to reinstall the system and copy files from the bad drive to the new drive. Well, some of the files...
 
I'd try a verbose-boot (CMD-V just after the startup chime until you see boot messages start) to find out where it's stopping. Could be memory or harddrive, but this should give you a better clue than our guessing at it... ;)
 
I second the bad RAM idea.

I just got a new dual G4 867 with 768 MB RAM, I had to install OS X twice, it would hang on the grey screen, then I tried it with the extra 512 RAM stick pulled out and everything worked perfectly.

I returned the stick got a new one, and that one didn't work either, so I received "Apple Branded" RAM (whatever that is...), and now everything works great! I guess my machine is just picky about the RAM.
 
that the initial grey screen (this was true for earlier versions of Mac OS as well) appears while certain tasks are being performed, namely RAM check.

According to the same source, the more RAM, the longer it takes to check it.

This almost supports the Bad RAM theory, however, my experience on a Pismo does not allow me to confirm.

I, too, have experienced the hang up on grey screen. I recently installed more RAM at the same time I upgraded to Jaguar, but I am also noticing strange clicking noises coming from my hard drive. Can't tell if my drive is starting to fail or the RAM is causing the trouble.

I should add that I'm too lazy to take out the second RAM chip I just installed under the CPU :p
 
On this topic... does anyone know of a good "RAM Tester"?

This week my co-worker's machine stalled on start up... as described above.

I was thinking it was memory related, since I reformatted the drive and installed everything over again. I'm looking for something freeware, if I can find it, but I suppose we could also pay if there are no free options.

This utility could be for os9 or osx.
 
Try TechTool Pro it will test ram but I don't know how well it does though, I had a bad stick of ram in a 9500 and techtool always checked it out as good.




Originally posted by evildan
On this topic... does anyone know of a good "RAM Tester"?

This week my co-worker's machine stalled on start up... as described above.

I was thinking it was memory related, since I reformatted the drive and installed everything over again. I'm looking for something freeware, if I can find it, but I suppose we could also pay if there are no free options.

This utility could be for os9 or osx.
Click to expand...
 
I'm having the same problem on my Beige G3 MT.

I formatted and partitioned the HD into a 7.5/2.5/8GB format and it will load the CD and run the installer, but when it finishes installation it reboots to the gray screen with the white 'smudged' error box. By smudged I mean it crosses the entire center of the screen and is unreadable. The Disk Utility included with the installer finds no problems with the HD.

The complete system specs are:
G3 Beige 266 Rev C with 576MB RAM, 20GB IDE HD, 24X IDE CD ROM, SCSI internal IOMEGA Zip 100

I used cmd-V as recommended and here's what it told me. Hopefully someone with more knowledge than I have can tell me what it means:

using 1474 buffer headers and 1474 cluster IO buffer headers
verifyCompatibility(): Extension "com.apple.kernel.iokit" cannot found
getDependencyListForKmod(): Dependency com.apple.kernel.iokit of com.apple.driver.AppleGossamerPE is not compatible or is unavailable.
load_kernel_extension(): Can't get dependencies for kernel extension "com.apple.driver.AppleGossamerPE".
IOCatalogue: com.apple.driver.AppleGossamerPE cannot be loaded
verifyCompatibility(): Extension "com.apple.kernel.iokit" cannot found
getDependencyListForKmod(): Dependency com.apple.kernel.iokit of com.apple.iokit.AudioDeviceTreeUpdater" is not compatible or is unavailable.
load_kernel_extension(): Can't get dependencies for kernel extension "com.apple.iokit.AudioDeviceTreeUpdater".
IOCatalogue: com.apple.iokit.AudioDeviceTreeUpdater cannot be loaded
panic(cpu 0): Unable to find driver for this platform: "AAPL,PowerMac G3".

Latest stack backtrace for cpu0:
** this area is covered by the 'smudged error box' **
Darwin Kernel Version 6.0:
Sat Jul 27 13:18:52 PDT 2002; root:xnu/xnu-344.obj1/RELEASE_PPC

No debugger configured - dumping debug information!
MSR=00001030
Latest stack backtrace for cpu0:
Backtrace:
0x0008593C 0x00085F00 0x00028B8C 0x002314A8 0x00213834 0x00214184 0x002147E0
0x00204C60 0x00204C24
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x01811500)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000; (unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 6.0:
Sat Jul 27 13:18:52 PDT 2002; root:xnu/xnu-344.obj1/RELEASE_PPC

panic: We are hanging here...

Thanks,
Joe
 
Thanks for all your replys - most probably holy water would have helped as well, AppMan ;-) ...

... but i found out at last - my installer cd was damaged - i got me a new one and it worked at the first try .... :)))
 
One ram checker is DIMM First Aid.

Apple’s Firmware updates sometimes disable questionable or RAM that is okay but not quite up to their specs. This program will check your RAM first (if it fails the check it will disable the memory); if it determines that the RAM is okay, it will mark the RAM as okay and addressable to the operating system.

Get it here:
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10415&db=mac

Alternatively, there's RamCheck:
ftp://ftp.traffictrak.com/RAMCheck21.sit
 
Bad RAM would normally result in the a beep sound at startup and refusing to boot.
I'd try to reset the NVRAM/PRAM, that solves most issues like the one you describe. It's done by holding down command+alt+p+r before at startup until you hear the startup sound once more.
 
I called 1-800-APL-CARE to ask about a problem I have with my iMac and noticed a recording Apple put up while you're waiting for the technician. Says something about "if you get a grey screen or blue screen after installing OS X, " blablabla... something about "reinstall OS X".

In any case, if you're still under warranty, call them up and ask and post the answer here for all of the unfortunate, expired warranty folks :))

- pbmac
 
Bad RAM actually gives a kernel panic on iBooks/PowerBooks under Mac OS X 10.2. I tried a DIMM I knew was faulty, and that's what I got on both an iBook 600 Combo and my PowerBook G4/500. Under OS 9, the computer just booted without acknowledging the additional RAM.
 
I get that screen every time I try to install Jaguar on my G4.
I have had extra memory installed after I bought the machine, another module of 512 megs. But as to date I never ever experienced troubles with 'bad memory'.
When opening the installer I get the message to restart the machine. After clicking 'ok' the message appears that the installer can't define the cd as startup disk. When I copy the entire cd to another partition I can start up, but I get no further than that grey screen with the apple logo. I hear nothing, no buzzing of the hard drive, nothing
 
I had the same, in 2 conditions:
- at install. In this case, 1) take out 3rd party ram if you have, then install jag, then install the chip again; or 2) maybe your install CD is bad, change it for free at an Apple reseller
- after install: I solved every problem by running the "repair disk permissions" routine (from the bootable CD).

Jag rocks now.
 
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