MacBook Pro early 2008 - Power Button ONLY working when RAM removed

MacBook Pro 15-inch (early 2008)

2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB

OSX 10.5.8

Whilst doing a back up to an external drive my macbook pro froze & then the screen went grey. I powered down by holding the power button down & restarted back to normal.

The next day the power button would only work if I held it down continuously which after a few seconds would switch the power off.

If I released the button during this very brief power up, the macbook pro would turn off immeadiately.

However the power button DOES work normally when the both RAM modules are removed - but with a black screen & a loud beeping tone.

The backup which I was doing took much longer than expected - which raised my suspicions.

Have i suffered a logic board or/& NVIDIA graphics board failure.

Having been on Leopard for ages - I decided to backup & upgrade as alot of software was not supporting Leopard.

End result - a non-functioning MBP just a few months after my 2 yr old Ipod nano (7th gen.) died too.

So much for long-term confidence in Apple products 😟