Mac wont boot

[Ethann_AKA_CPU1]

I have an Imac 2008 and for some reason it will play the startup of chime then get stuck at a grey screen. I've done all of the startup key combos (booting from usb, verbose, recovery mode, etc.) and it wont work. So if you guys have any other ideas please tell me. Thanks for the help

[ben dover kid]

i would consider the possibility that its just broken. take it to apple, theyll make you pay a x amount of cash money, and they fix it and you pay even more cashmoney, or then its just broken

[NeoFrux]

Have you ruled out the hard drive? It could be that it's getting stuck initializing it if it's gone bad. Wouldn't be too far-fetched for a 2008 model. I'd also suspect the memory, but you'd need DDR2 SODIMMs to test for that. Aside from that, I'd try resetting the SMC and PRAM if you haven't already. If all that checks out, you're probably looking at a logic board fail.

[Ethann_AKA_CPU1]

UPDATE: tried using my laptops ram (2008 macbook), which works on the laptop, but didn't work on the IMac. Also when was reinserting the old ram the computer would give me an "angry" beep until I put the sticks in the other slot, which makes me think that it's a wonky logic board

[Zaptecc]

Buy a Windows PC.

 

#pcmasterrace

[Ethann_AKA_CPU1]

1 hour ago, lightningdude38 said:

Buy a Windows PC.

 

#pcmasterrace

its an old computer that was my parents first (they REALLY like apple)

[ibom]

The "chime" is apples version of a good POST so hardware was good. Grey means it's at the point of looking for the OS

 

2008 vintage might not boot from usb drives. Does it still have an optical drive? Then you can't boot from usb... because apple. 

 

Might need to find a snow leopard disc I.e. OSX 10.6  or whatever came with the machine. Then you can boot from it by holding C.

 

If you haven't yet, unplug the macs power cable for 15 seconds, then plug back in and fire it up. That's a desktop SMC, which you can't do holding keys like on a portable macbook

[Ethann_AKA_CPU1]

9 minutes ago, ibom said:

The "chime" is apples version of a good POST so hardware was good. Grey means it's at the point of looking for the OS

 

2008 vintage might not boot from usb drives. Does it still have an optical drive? Then you can't boot from usb... because apple. 

 

Might need to find a snow leopard disc I.e. OSX 10.6  or whatever came with the machine. Then you can boot from it by holding C.

 

If you haven't yet, unplug the macs power cable for 15 seconds, then plug back in and fire it up. That's a desktop SMC, which you can't do holding keys like on a portable macbook

UPDATE again:

I tried/still am trying to boot from a cd but it appears that it won't work.

[ibom]

What keyboard are you using? Have you been successful in doing a pram reset where you heard the chime 2+ times?  3rd party keyboards wont always work for troubleshooting. Preferably an apple usb keyboard or generic usb. Remove anything wireless from the equation