Hardware :: System Freezes Or Hangs On Boot / Startup
Apr 27, 2008
I have a mac pro running leopard (purchased in 2/08) and it was running beautifully for almost 2 months with no hangs, crashes or freezes. Then, for some reason, today when I turned it on, it would not boot. It would get to the apple logo, then just sit there for a few minutes, then reboot itself and the same thing would happen. I pulled out the ethernet cable, unplugged all usb except keyboard/mouse and it would then (sometimes) boot into the system, log me in and present me with the UI.
I then quickly performed a soft reboot and it would get to the desktop. However, I can only use it for anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes before it would completely lockup. The clock freezes, the mouse freezes and it just sits there forever. I have tried booting into Vista (BootCamp) and it also freezes before startup is complete. If I hold down Option and then select the System disk, it will either just hang forever or get to the desktop and then freeze again....................
View 1 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Jan 5, 2011
I've been reading this site for a while now, first time I'm posting. I recently purchased 8 GB of RAM for my 2010 13" MBP. There are two 4 GB DDR3 PC3-10500 1333mhz sticks. When I install them in the laptop my computer does not get past the apple logo boot screen (the spinning disc freezes). However, I can boot into Windows (boot camp) without issues.
Also, when I pair either of the 4 GB sticks with one of my old 2 GB stock sticks the laptop boots up fine in OS X. The system profiler registers it as 6 GB of 1067 mhz RAM (the stock sticks are 1067 mhz)
View 7 Replies
View Related
Dec 7, 2009
A few months ago I had a problem with my Macbook Pro, (late 2009 model, 15" 2.53 ghz) that many users with Snow Leopard have, the random 30 second freezes. I simply reset the PRAM and SMC and I never encountered it again. Now, out of the blue, on Sunday (yesterday), I started experiencing these hangs again, but worse. The night before I had been browsing the web and my battery went to reserve and shut down, so I plugged it in and when I awoke and turned it on I started experiencing problems. I figured I would try the same fix, and it almost seemed to make the problem worse. Now if I shut down the computer via "apple -> shut down", then turn it back on and log in etc., from the first few seconds the machine hangs. If I open a folder I get the immediate beach-ball and the machine is un-responsive for anywhere from 1 minute - 5+ minutes.
I have read a lot of fixes for this problem, but most of the people's problems resulted from using Safari or Spotlight. I strictly use Firefox and very rarely even open Safari, and I think I've used Spotlight maybe 3 times total, none in the past few months. So far the things I've tried are:
- Reset PRAM
- Reset SMC
- Run Disc Utility and verify, repair etc. (from SL install disc)
So I'm wondering right now what can I do? Its finals week right now and im in college so wiping my HD is not an option. I feel like there is just something hanging the computer but I can't find the culprit.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Apr 17, 2012
I have a new MacBook Air running Lion. Every time I use my backup software, it changes the permissions on my external drives, and I have to change them from read only to read & write, so I've gotten in that habit. At one point, I noticed that the permissions on my internal *startup disc* were read only, so I (foolishly, I now know) changed the permissions on the startup disc to read & write, with apply to all enclosed items checked. As I continued working, I got messages that a number of extensions could not be used and will be disabled (or something like that). I decided to reboot, so the computer could reset and hopefully correct things.
When I tried to boot, it hung up on the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning clock/gear. I let it spin for a while, then forced power down and tried to boot in safe mode. The progress bar appeared as it's supposed to, but when the progress bar finished, it went back to the grey screen and hung up again. I let it spin for over 40 minutes before powering down, just in case it was doing diagnostics or something. I don't have access to the original OS DVD (nor do I have an optical drive to put it in). Any way for getting the computer to boot, at least in safe mode?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jan 29, 2010
Macbook Air, Rev A. Worked like a charm for 1.5 years.Upgraded to a Rev c SSD and gave the Rev A to the wife.She installed NOTHING.Within a few weeks it started running VERY slow. I'm talking 2 minutes of beach ball per click.I use Disk Utility to check the drive. No problems of any kind.
Rebooting would take -- and I'm not exaggerating -- over an hour. First it would sit with a grey screen for 5 minutes. Then with an apple logo for 10 more. Then with the little spinning circle for 30. Then the desktop background would show up and sit for 20 minutes, etc.
Was gonna upgrade to Snow Leopard so what the heck, backed it all up and installed Snow Leopard. To my surprise, it instaled Snow Leopard on top of the old OS -- it kept all the files around so no need to restore from backup.
Speed problem SOLVED!Then a few weeks later the same problems.This time I check the drive AND run the hardware test. No problems.I ERASED the entire drive. I installed Snow Leopard.All is good for a few weeks.Then the problem came back a 3rd time.
I go to reinstall a 3rd time and Snow Leopard doesn't even acknowledge that there's a hard drive in the machine! And when I look in system profiler it says there's no drive of any sort. Yet it will reboot and run... just VERRRRRYYYY slowly.
I'm ready to replace the drive with a Runcore SSD or some such other device but I want to be sure the problem is the drive and not some other aspect of the hardware (motherboard, RAM, etc.)Anyone ever seen this? Anyone have any ideas as to how to investigate, solve, conquer, save myself from madness??
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jun 24, 2009
I booted the machine like it said, and heard some beeps - didn't think much of it, but then it just went to the grey screen with Apple logo and the loader, and hangs there.ow what I can do to solve this, is there a key combination that can reset something or an restore EFI file
View 5 Replies
View Related
Nov 10, 2009
I have a early 09 iMac 2.93Ghz with 6GB of ram. About a month ago it kept freezing at the grey startup screen. I took it to Apple and two trips to Apple later my hard drive was replaced. One month later here I am and the problem is happening again, the same exact problem. I turn on the iMac it goes to the grey screen, the beach ball "like" thing starts spinning and then it freezes in the middle of it and I have to do a hard power off(hold down the power button). Any ideas!? I already scheduled a appointment with Apple tomorrow afternoon but its a royal pain in the a** to keep shuffling my iMac between home and the Apple store. This will be my 4th trip in for the same problem, btw.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Mar 20, 2008
My dads MacBook Pro started acting weird first the screen would freeze up and the cursor could still move but there would be about an inch wide black line that would follow on top of the cursor wherever you moved it.
We thought it was a software problem so we booted it up off an external drive and it did the same thing after a few seconds of loading the finder, now it won't even boot, it loads the white screen with the apple, then it stops at the blue screen where it usually shows the loading of everything, once in a while it will get past that but it freezes with black lines over the cursor.
I've tried zapping the pram and i've held the power button down till it beeps i've also reset the pmu, so im out of ideas.
View 6 Replies
View Related
Jun 9, 2012
I was using my mac pro 3.2 octo from 2009 without any troubles. Recently it started giving non stop trouble. I have 2 gb ram from the factory and another 2 from 3rd party. My problem is when I boot my mac I am getting some strange vague designs and it freezes. I tried shifting the boot hard disk from slot 1 to slot 2, booting with either set of ram, changing the graphic card slot etc.
Info:
PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jan 30, 2010
Since a few days ago my Macbook Pro 13" from last June started to freeze randomly for atleast 30 seconds and then it would come back and most of the time freeze again after a while (in OSX only it seems, Windows 7 I did not have such problems, though I didn't use it often). Sometimes it occured frequently, other times it didn't and this morning I had the same thing again, I just held the power button and shut it down, did this two times in a short period of time and when trying to boot it for the second time all I get is a gray screen with no Apple logo or anything.
Searched the forums, tried the install DVD and C button to no avail, same thing with trying to reset the PRAM and NVRAM...Is the logic board broken or anything? I don't understand how this could happen...And if I do take my laptop to Apple, should I remove the Intel SSD drive I got in it right now and put in the stock?
View 2 Replies
View Related
Nov 9, 2010
just using my new MBP today and twice when turning it on it started to boot up and got as far as the blue screen (just before the desktop pic and stayed there.Is this normal sometimes?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Oct 1, 2010
The other day my 1st gen MBP functioned without any probs, until it suddenly powered down. After I removed the question marks from my eyes, I offcourse tried to reboot it.
But it never makes it beyond the grey screen, sometimes untill the apple logo, sometimes not even that far.
Offcours I googled around first to gather some info before I decided to put this problem down on this board. I found this could be a HDD failure, but in those cases, with other people, it could be powered holding apple + s, and doing some checks that way.
Mine doesn't even come that far
I have a second hand 1st gen MBP with upgraded HDD and RAM, snow leopard, and coincidently since last week no more battery... so i may have powered down a completely unprepared mac by tripping over the wire, once or twice...
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jan 12, 2011
I own an iBook G4. I could not get it to boot up, it would just go to a grey screen with the apple symbol and a timer/clock that looked like a gear.FYI: I may provide more information than necessary in the text below. I'm not sure what is and isn't relevant.
Following some advice I found in this forum I got out my old OS disks to boot from the disc instead of the hard drive. I intended to archive the old hard drive and install my latest OS (10.4.6 on the disc, 10.4.11 was the version I had been running on the machine, I believe). The machine told me it needed 4.5 Gb to install 10.4.6 Tiger, but I only had 4.0 Gb left on the hard drive. So instead, I archived and installed with the OS that came with the computer originally, 10.3.4.
I got things going, did the archive and install, and got to the log in screen. Unfortunately, I could not remember the password, so I booted up in single user mode, and entered the following to get into the machine:
1. mount -uw /
2. rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
3. shutdown -h now
This got me in with a new admin login, and I started up in 10.3.4. I soon noticed that I could still see all of the files that I put on the hard drive on my old operating system. I thought I shouldn't be able to see them, but since I could I decided to try to copy them to an external hard drive. When I did, I got an error message saying that there was a read/write error. I was not entirely surprised, but I decided it was time to turn back to the forums for help.
What I want to do is copy everything from my old hard drive onto an external hard drive, make room on the iBook hard drive to reinstall my latest operating system (10.4.6). Once I've done that I'd like to get the essential files back onto the iBook from the external hard drive and continue using my computer (even though it is a dinosaur).
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jun 23, 2012
I have a 2009 8-core running Lion. It has now starting hanging (desktop visible but no response to any input device). I have run Disk Utility and Apple Hardware Test from install DVD (full test) and it finds no issues. Any thoughts as to how to investigate further. Sounds like a memory leak in an app somewhere, but none are left runnIng.Machine is ok when being used but then is hung when left for a few hours. If I take to Genius Bar I assume they will run AHT and say no faults can be found.
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
View 12 Replies
View Related
Jun 18, 2012
My MacBook Pro constantly freezes or hangs up. Only solution at this time, hard boot.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2 meg, 250 g harddrive
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 5, 2010
I have a unibody Macbook Pro running OSX 10.6.3. Everything is up to date but the computer is now on its second hard drive and fresh install of OSX and is still unusable. After the hard drive was replaced, it worked flawlessly for an evening. However, the old symptoms reemerged the next morning. Symptoms: very slow to boot or freezes on gray screen with status circle frozen grey circle with slash through it on boot
once it boots, if it does boot, the beachball constantly spins/freezes... I have literally no software installed on the fresh install and it still does it when attempting to boot in safe mode Also, the hard drive when checked gives the following errors even after I repair them in drive genius (the same errors the old drive reported):
invalid file count
invalid directory count
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jul 1, 2012
I own two Intel-era Mac Pros, one at work, the other at home office.couple months ago both started having the same problem: a mix of freezes/hangs and weird graphical artifacts showing up on the screens.Usually I need to reboot. Usually a reboot fixes the problem for a while until it recurs. If it was just one computer, I'd figure disk problem or graphics card.But the fact that both have been affected at the same time makes me suspect some software issue or possibly a trojan/virus.
Info:
mac pro, Mac OS X (10.4.8)
View 4 Replies
View Related
Aug 19, 2009
I was downloading a couple of software upgrades onto my Mini -- the latest version of Safari and a security app of some sort -- when I suddenly lost power. On getting the electricity flowing again, I retstarted the Mini, but it's hung on the opening gray Apple display -- the spinny thing just keeps on spinning, and I get the feeling it's not going to stop. Did the power outage in mid-upgrade screw my Mini beyond all un-screwing? Should I try putting it in Target mode and running Disk Utility on it from my iBook? What should I do?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Apr 20, 2012
My 2010 Mac Mini shows grey screen with progress bar on startup and after some time I get multi language restart notification. I reboot and etry and it seems to work but once it goes to sleep there is n waking up.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
View 2 Replies
View Related
Mar 13, 2009
Unexpected power loss while browsing with Safari V4.0Beta (unrelated problem) left me in a state where I can no longer run any version of Safari. I have already restored (via time machine)my entire Library twice with no effect. Other users on this iMac G5 can run Safari with no problem. This appears to be some form of intentional lock out... Somewhat like a parent lock, but parental controls are not being used. In addition, this is the only admin account (I'm the primary user) so I don't make a habit of telling myself I can't use an application. Bottom line: When I invoke Safari, the URL never changes and I am stuck with the spinning colorwheel and an empty white Safari screen.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Aug 22, 2009
I've got a 1st generation iMac G5 (I think, from 2004) running 10.4.x that has become 'the family' computer since I upgraded this past winter. I haven't been keeping up with updates and decided about 3 weeks ago to finally go through and update everything; had been at least 4 mo.s since the last update and udates included Java Script, iTunes and a Security Update. I started downloading the updates then quit Safari (which had previously been running) walked away to do other things around the house (since it would take a while) and when I came back I had an error message that the logout (to restart - which was required for the Security Update) had timed out because Safari would/could not quit. I clicked OK, force quit Safari and shut down the computer (since no one was going to be using it for the rest of the day and a restart was required anyway).
Came back the next day to startup the computer and it just hung at the blue screen with the mouse arrow. Assuming there was something wrong with the update that was just installed OR the startup disk I reset the PRAM/NVRAM: no change. Tried starting in safe mode: wouldn't (and still won't) move past the blue screen with spinning gear. Tried to boot from install disc to repair the HDD with Disk Utility: Couldn't repair the disk volume (Invalid leaf record count: should be 13 was 1203). Tried single user fsck: scanned twice and reported volume repaired, went to restart - still hangs, tried to boot in safe mode again - still hangs at blue screen with spinning gear. And that's where I'm at now. Anyone got any good other ideas out there? I've searched a lot and haven't found anything I haven't tried. I'm guessing the installed update(s) never completely installed and screwed something up on the startup disk. But I can't access ANYTHING to figure out if that was the problem. I would really like to keep this computer for the kids but don't want to spend any money on it if I can avoid it.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Sep 27, 2009
I have a Dual 1.8Ghz G5 that hangs on startup, right at the grey screen, the pinwheel will freeze.
I have tried:
- Resetting pram and nvram
- Starting from the install CD with the HD disconnected
neither of which worked.
Oddly enough, it will start and run the apple hardware check CD, and an advanced check reports everything as OK.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Apr 26, 2010
My old faithful G4 867 Quicksilver won't start up. The grey screen with the apple appears, then the progress bar over a blue background. The progress bar gets to full and the system hangs there. Here are the answers to the "Read This Before Posting" questions: What OS X system (version) are you running? 10.4.1.1
--Have you run permissions yet? Not sure exactly what that means, but attempted to repair them using Disk Utility and then DiskWarrior
--Have you used Disk Utility from the CD to Repair Disk? Yes
--What devices are connected to your machine? USB Keyboard, USB mouse connected through keyboard port, lcd monitor,
ethernet cable
More background on the situation:
I have zapped the PRAM.
It will not boot into safe mode..................
View 7 Replies
View Related
Jun 26, 2012
about half a year ago the address book in my Macbook started to grow uncontrolled until it had more than 100000 records, wherof 99% were empty or fragmented, This caused the app to be very slow and freeze from time to time.
I tried to delete the corrupted records, but because of the large database and an old Macbook, it took ages to delete just a couple of hundred records a time. Now the app refuses to start (it hangs before it even shows up), even as the first app after a reboot.
The iCloud address book is OK on the web and on my iPad, so if I just could empty and reset the app in Macbook, I could be back on track.
I've tried to move the addressbook file (AddressBook-v22.abcddb, 125,3 MB) to another library, and I've deleted the .plist files, but it doesn't help.
I can see that the process findnames grows to almost 1 GB in memory if I don't stop it, and so does the process AddressBookMobileMeSharingAgent ...Â
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jun 27, 2009
I have an old Macintosh II that someone gave me. It powers on but when it gets to the gray screen right upon startup, it hangs there and never shows the "?" Anyone knows why it does this? What can I do about it? Thanks.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Sep 12, 2010
My iMac will chime, then hang on the grey apple screen with the spinning gear. After a few minutes, it shuts off. Tried resetting Pram and all... Did not work. I troubleshooted using another website, and found it to be an I/O Error. The issue is I need to reinstall the OS, however, when I boot the install CD it hangs the minute I click the mouse or keyboard.
View 8 Replies
View Related
May 19, 2008
My computer hangs on startup. It's a PowerBook 12� G4 with 10.3.9.
First, the screen flashes black, then blue, then I get the normal startup progress bar. At the end, though, it hangs. If the ethernet cord is in, it hangs at "Waiting for network services" or something like that. If the ethernet cord is out, it hangs at "Login window starting".
The bigger problem is that my system install CDs are in the U.S., and I'm in China for the next six weeks.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Aug 28, 2009
I'm helping troubleshoot an issue with a Mac Mini running Tiger 10.4. Basically, it was set up to automatically login, but the original owner never wrote down the user name OR password. So I went to work trying to figure these both out. I worked in single user mode to figure out the username pretty easily. But the password became a real issue. First off, the Password Reset option on the install CD would not work. When I clicked on my Hard Drive to change that password, it would gray out the options. So, I went to single user mode commands. I tried:
1. Booting into single user mode
2. Type fsck -fy
3. Type mount -uw /
4. Type launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
5. Type dscl . -passwd /Users/username password, replacing username with the targeted user and password with the desired password.
6. Reboot
Didn't work. Neither did the more Tiger-specific commands, where you'd type:
sh /etc/rc...............
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jul 3, 2012
I recently took the plunge and installed Lion after being content with Snow Leopard....well now I have quite a few issues. When I open system preferences for some reason it automatically opens to Network...why I'm not sure. When I click show all, then click sharing, I can't make any changes in the Sharing preferences without my entire system locking up. I can't force quit or anything. I can still use the mouse but all I have is the rainbow wheel!
I have searched and searched and haven't been able to fix it. I have tried booting into the Guest account and the same problem happens there. I have trashed all the plist files everyone says to try. I have tried repairing permissions etc. I feel like I have tried everything. Is there anything else that I can do without have to do a clean re-install. I'm hearing if I do this that I won't be able to migrate my files from by backups due to permission problems?
I also took a look at my system log and it is full of this!
Jul 3 22:24:26 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service[1307]): Exited with code: 1
Jul 3 22:24:26 jessica-imac com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.Kerberos.digest-service): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds .....
Info:
Mac OS X (10.7.4)
View 1 Replies
View Related
Dec 26, 2008
I have a iMac(20") for about a year now and its ran great up untill now. It is hanging on boot. Sometimes its the white screen with apple logo and spinning gear, other times the screen goes blue and i can see it load a mouse cursor for about 2 seconds, then the screen goes through a few shades of blue and the spinning gear re-apears with no apple logo. The computer then loops. I tried to boot to safe mode, but as i have the sound off i am not sure i am holding the shift key at teh proper moment. If anyone has any advice, please, please let me know. my mac reinstall cd is about 8hrs drive from where i am, and i do not know if mac issues replacement cd's.
View 1 Replies
View Related
