PowerMac G5 frequent Kernel Panics?

I have a late-2005 G5 which has been behaving badly lately. 6 months ago I upgraded from Tiger 10.4.11 to Leopard 10.5.8 and soon after it started going thru those bad crashes, though I'm not at all sure upgrading to Leopard is connected.

I'm not sure this is a real Kernel Panic, but almost every time I do a regular restart, few hours later, always around or after midnight, I can hear my Mac's fans blowing hard, and a red LED light shows up behind the power button. Trying to restart again, I'm having trouble getting the Mac to restart normally, the red LED shines and after a while the fans start blowing again. I have to go thru 2-3 more cycles, till my Mac starts up normally again.

Last night, when it happened again, I open the metal lid and shot a picture...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18131&stc=1&d=1350415075

....Any clue?..... Thanks so much !!!

If I'm interpreting that right, that's LED #7, and it being on means there is a hardware failure (don't know what).
About the Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) diagnostic LEDs

Looks like one of the processors has tossed it in.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/562421?start=0&tstart=0

gsahli said:

If I'm interpreting that right, that's LED #7, and it being on means there is a hardware failure (don't know what).
About the Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) diagnostic LEDs

Click to expand...

I don't think it's any of the LEDs Apple is listing. Below is a wider photo that shows the DIMS on the right. As far as I understand those LEDs are next and to the left to those DIMS. The shining LED in my case is in a different location, much closer to the power0button...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18132&stc=1&d=1350430827

From the picture it's still not clear to me -- but LED806 CHECKSTOP is the #7 LED.

YES, you guys were right. See, when I opened the lid to take the picture it was in the middle of the night. I now opened the lid again in broad daylight, and of course, I now see where my DIMS are, 2 just above the lit LED, and 2 below (outside the photo)....

SO, what do you guys suggest I do now, before taking my Mac to repair, which means time down and money spent?........ Thanks !

SO, what do you guys suggest I do now, before taking my Mac to repair, which means time down and money spent?........ Thanks !

Click to expand...

Did you read the link that member Harry provided? If your problem is the same as was described in the Apple Discussions Forum (and it appears it is), it may be time to buy a new machine. The G5 is outdated and probably not worth repairing. It was a great machine in its day, but maybe it's time to move on?

Yes, he kept replacing parts and it didn't work, but he had Apple Care, so I guess it didn't cost him money, just the inconvenience...

My problem is, I'm strapped for money, right now... Real bad....

The question is, can I keep going with this, for a while, at least... The crashes happen only after I do a restart, few hours later, around midnight or later during the night, so there is a pattern here... But then once I shut down and try restarting the next morning I have a hard time with the restart, need to try several times till it does restart normally... Otherwise the Mac works fine...

Sadly if the diagnosis is correct it will get worse and finally throw the towel in altogether.