Depending on your Mac model, the screen may be gray, black, or very dark.

There are troubleshooting steps and solutions to give a shot to get your Mac back up and running.

Earlier Mac models showed a gray screen during a stalled startup, and the name stuck.

Keep your keyboard, mouse, and display connected.

Power on your Mac without peripherals attached.

Shut down your Mac again, reconnect a peripheral, and then reset your Mac.

Continue this process until you find the bad peripheral.

The problem might also be a bad cable.

Swap out your mouse and keyboard.

Connect a known, good mouse and keyboard, then power cycle your Mac.

See if this solves the gray screen problem.

Start your Mac using the Safe Boot process.

double-check all peripherals, except the mouse and keyboard, are disconnected, then try a Safe Boot.

During a Safe Boot, your Mac performs a startup drive directory check.

Resetting the PRAM and the SMC returns your Mac’s hardware to its default controls.

You should be able to continue working with your Mac until you get the replacement RAM.

Boot from a bootable installer.

(Alternatively,start your Mac from the Recovery HD.)

If you identified the startup drive as the problem source, repair it usingDisk Utility’s First Aid.

If you might’t repair your startup drive using Disk Utility, try a third-party drive utility.

If the repair process isn’t working, you may need to replace your startup drive.

Boot into single-user mode (fsck).

The little-known single-use startup mode boots the Mac to a screen that displays information about the startup process.

(It looks like an old-fashioned terminal.)

It notifies you if problems were found with your startup disk and attempts to correct the errors.

If it successfully repairs the startup drive, you’ll see a “Volume OK” message.

If you don’t see this message, the startup disk has bigger problems.

Make an Apple Store appointmentor find anApple-authorized service center.

Be sure to take your Mac to a trusted entity.

Problems with peripherals, RAM issues, or drive problems could be preventing your Mac from starting up properly.

Any of these conditions can cause your Mac to freeze during the startup process.

The gray screen problem presents in different ways.

In other models, you may see ablue startup screenthat changes to a stuck gray screen.

You may see an Apple logo or an icon, or just a gray or dark screen.

If the problem goes away under a different account, you may need toreplace your user account.