Icarus; I found I did have some red flashing lights. I went into Apple menu-about this Mac- System report-- diagnostics- It told me I had memory failure in 3 of my memory card dims. 1-4gb and both 1gb cards. I called the co. I had purchased the 2-4gbs from. they had LIFETIME WARRANTY "MEMORYAMERICA.COM" They sent me the 8 gb memory cards. Got them Sat. Installed and did take out the 2-1gb Apple card-8yrs. Old, no warranty.
Now I have 8 gb's Ram instead of 10; every thing is working great, just like when new.
Thanks for your help and to you others also !
Dickster-----