[jjokerski]

My wife has a G4 cube with a 17.2" Formac monitor (ADC).

The other day it went to sleep and wouldn't wake up. When we restarted it, it would boot, but we'd only see the cursor on a plain gray screen. It can boot fine in safe mode or from a CD.

I even "took control" of the screen using Remote Desktop and it shows up gray there, too. It is booting... I can type a login, hear it start up, and even guess where the shutdown is under the apple menu and get it to shut down. It's just not displaying on the screen.

I've tried all the "obvious" fixes:
-Zap the PRAM/NVRAM
-boot from CD and repair permissions / repair disk
-installed the latest combo update from Apple (now on 10.3.7)

However, I'd like to know if there's something else I can try before reinstalling the OS. Seems like it's just something funky in a preference / plist file or something. Any help would be appreciated.

[Spheric Harlot]

nm

[Big Mac]

Are you saying that it's a blank grey screen when you're supposed be seeing the Apple logo? Or is it much further into the boot process? Because if you're not seeing the normal Apple (happy Apple?) and see only grey in its place I would proceed directly to reinstall land.

[bergy]

Start up in Safe Boot .... Download and run this ...

Cache Out X
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9538

Important: Close all other applications before cleaning caches ....then reboot.

[jjokerski]

Thanks for the suggestion, Bergy. Just tried it and still the gray screen.

To further clarify, it goes past the gray apple with the spinner, but at the point where you would usually get your desktop and icons (or in my case, the login screen), it just has a gray screen with the arrow.

It does start up all the way, it just does not display on the screen. The login screen is there (I can type the password and hit enter and it logs in based on the hard drive noise). The software is loaded (evidenced by my ability to capture the screen with Remote Desktop.)

[jjokerski]

I just tried an "archive and install" only to have the machine boot to a solid BLACK screen (once again, it boots fully, just where the desktop, menu and icons should be is a solid black screen.

Safe boot works fine.

I'm applying the combo update for 10.3.7 now.

I will be connecting a VGA monitor to the machine next to see if it's the ADC it doesn't like.

[jjokerski]

VGA monitor doesn't work either. I have the top half of the screen dark and the bottom half has lines through it.

*sigh*

I used disk utility to create a disk image (I had already backed up my wife's documents) and am going to try to do a reformat and clean install of OS X unless someone has a better idea.

[Big Mac]

Man. After an archive and install you're still having the problem. . . that's a real noggin scratcher. This happens to all the accounts on the machine, right?

[Hal Atkins]

This just happened to me with my AlBook - it went to sleep, wouldn't wake up, and I couldn't get anything on startup. Took it in to the Apple store, and they said the hard drive was failing.

Fortunately, they were able to put in a new drive and still get my data off the old drive.

[jjokerski]

A total reformat and reinstall STILL yielded the same results. In fact, OS 9 hangs while loading extensions. I'm sure it's something I could solve if I spent enough time and had enough parts to swap, but I broke down and bought my wife a 17" iMac today. I'm thinking of putting the old machine on eBay (disclosing the problem I've had).

Target disk mode worked fine, and after restoring the backup image I made before doing all this troubleshooting, it was an extremely quick setup.

I wish the adapters to get that Formac display working on my VGA PC are so expensive. I love that monitor, and it's just over a year old. I might get a DVI adapter to connect it to my Powerbook, but don't know how much I'd use it.

Anyway, thanks for the help, folks.