Any suggestions appreciated - suddenly hanging on boot

[RicardoF1RST]

Hi, just recovering from COVID (not recommended) so my brain isn't functioning correctly at the moment, any pointers on where to start?

High Sierra, boots through Clover fine, Apple symbol, progress bar updates, 3 monitors all go black, then where I would normally get the familiar sign in screen I just get 3 dark grey monitors with a mouse pointer that moves fine, keyboard is also functional (CAPS LOCK etc). I have booted into Recovery and wound back to just before Christmas and it booted normal initially, but re-boot to same place again. I have booted into single user mode and end up at the prompt, can navigate the SSD and all appears fine. The last message is a time out on a USB kext.

The only other odd issue I have had is with my ATI 5870 graphics card sometimes displaying garbage on one of my screens which requires a reboot. Just before Christmas (& COVID!) the Hack booted, to the 3 blank screens with mouse pointer then the houses RCD tripped. I narrowed it down to my Hackintosh being plugged in, then developed COVID and gave up. I've come back now to sort it out and power wise the RCD isn't tripping anymore. I am wondering if a transient fault on the 5870 could trip a houses RCD (I thought the PSU fuse would go first) and if a problem with the 5870 could be causing the hang, although I get 3 blank screens with a mouse pointer, not the garbage I sometimes get.

Any suggestions where to start, appreciated.

Happy New Year all.

 

[RicardoF1RST]

p.s. Its not exactly hanging, just not reaching the OSX sign in screen.

 

[RicardoF1RST]

Boot into Recovery and even though I have a Time Capsule connected, the Recovery App could only see the recent Time Machine snapshots located on my normal boot drive. If I wind back to Dec 22nd then the Hackintosh boots fine and everything appears to work. If I then reset, I get the same effect - blank screen with a mouse pointer where the login dialogue should be.

Does anyone know of a system log I could look at for a pointer as to what is causing the issue?

 

[RicardoF1RST]

Booted normally today. So seems to have fixed itself. Only suggestion I can make for others is to enter Recovery and it appears that Time Machine makes snapshot backups which it saves locally (not on a Time Capsule) and restoring to a point prior to the problem appearing, appears to have solved the issue for now. I do have a Time Capsule that actively backs up, but for some reason High Sierra's Recovery couldn't see the network attached TC (direct connection into the Hackintosh which has two network sockets, the 2nd one goes to my router). Hence I could only restore to the snapshots.