Beosboxboy, if you have time could you help? :) UPDATE: RESOLVED see last post!

[caffeinated.joy]

A ha! That sounds like it's the culprit! Your 550 watt power supply sounds like it should do a great job of fixing things up, so your game should now run more smoothly. Good luck! I hope this means we'll be seeing an entry from you for the Man of the Season contest!

[Jagerjaques]

Aww. you pushin' my contest, Joy? Bless you! LOL Good luck with that, Tina, I had a similar problem with my power supply, so it may be very helpful!

[trl]

Thankies Bren! LOL Joy, I decided to take a bit of a break from entering contests (I enter a lot at the adult site)  but the Man of Season's is killing me!! I stalk and stalk thinking "Must not enter, must not enter" I am just too addicted to contests.

 Well today I didn't play I just entered neighborhoods and lots to see if it would crash. I had my settings to medium with shadows and reflections off. I went to several lots and nieghborhoods just messing around with decorating and all saved fine.  Then I turned up my settings but kept shadows and reflections off. I tried to enter another neighborhood, it loaded then went to black (usually does for me for a second just before the hood screen comes up) and then it went back to the blue loading screen for the neighborhood; the screen was flickering over and over. It didn't do this before! The hourglass kept turning and turning; usually this hood takes about 30 seconds to load. I then clicked on the main menu and that came up and I went to a different neighborhood and that loaded fine.  This time I went to a larger lot, messed around there and saved and it crashed to the black screen.
After the crash to the black screen I had to hold in the power botton until it turned off. I rebooted and checked the temperature and it was 50 degrees. It was cooler than usual (52-53 degrees).

It did do much better than it has the last several days but it is still not right. I really want to just say "I quit!!!" but I don't want this "diva" of a graphics card to win darn it!! *sigh* I know that the 550 power supply definitely was needed and worth the money but am disappointed it didn't completely solve the problem. Well I still have 2 drivers left to update but I am tired of fiddling with this and will probably take a break from it tomorrow. Thanks for all the support from everyone who has taken the time to respond.  Next time I go in game I am going to play in Pleasantville or Veronaville without my downloads folder and see what goes on. I have already done this but it can't hurt to try again.  :chainsaw:

[Jagerjaques]

I adore my Nvidia card.  Now that that's out of the way, I had to install a heat-sink (a fancy fan) right underneath it, to keep it happy.  Mine was only a cheap model at $20, but well worth it.  The other thing is, after you finish getting the drivers updated (it shouldn't take long, even with a "knock-off" like mine) make sure that you run the tests, and check your SOUND DRIVERS.  No kidding.

[trl]

I don't think I need a heat sink, Brenda. My power supply has a big fan on it. But then again, I am beginning to think I don't really know what I am talking about half of the time! :toothy10: :dontknow: :tard: ROFLMAO.

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue]UPDATE:[/COLOR]
I once again talked with my cards manufacturer and the tech believes there is some ATI data somewhere. He recommends using the repair disk for the operating system and if that doesn't work, a total op system reinstall. *I am keeping my fingers crossed!*  :notsmili:

[trl]

SUCCESS!!!
Sorry to double post but I am finally not crashing!! After taking a day off from troubleshooting, my hubby and I went through each bit of advice given with a fine tooth comb because we didn't want to do an Full Operating Systems re-install. The last thing we did was look for ATI stuff we may have missed. A tech at E-Machines felt there were hidden/not obvious ATI files somewhere. We again looked in Properties and found nothing, we looked through add/remove and  C dive and again, nothing. So we then did a search and it brought up several ATI files for the integrated/on board card. Steve deleted them all. I don't know how these files were missed but they were. Everything is now running as it should. I even pushed the card, turning settings up and tried to load the large community lot that was crashing on load and it loaded! YAY! Lesson learned: Search is your friend! To all you wonderful people who offered help, especially Beosboxboy and Ancienthighway...

From the bottom of my heart!