I am at my wit's end and have no clue what else to do. This will be long so I can explain. I am praying someone here can help.

Probably around December, everything with my game was fine. I had probably 100 items of CC (hairs and clothes mostly) and used Nraas story progression mod (my first time ever using a mod). The reason I only had 100 was because every time I'd try to put more in, my game wouldn't load. It would get stuck like halfway through the bar while loading my family.

So, I downloaded the new baby swing (so this started whenever that came out) and put it in with my other custom content. My game loaded but after like 30 seconds or a minute of playing my house, my screen would just go black and I'd have this buzzing/skipping sound coming from my speakers. I had to hard restart my computer. Took the swing out, kept doing the same thing. Took the mod out, still was doing it. Tried to make a new town, same thing. I quit playing.

Fast forward to today, I get Showtime in the mail. I remove CC and install. Put my CC back in, including baby swing and mod, it does the same thing. Again, I remove one at a time and then both, still does it.

I decide I'll uninstall all EPs and base game and reinstall. I do that, uninstalling my saved games, etc. that it asks you when you uninstall the base game. I reinstall base/all EPs. Put in NO custom content. I go into CAS and 2 minutes into it, I get the black screen and buzzing.

I've tried window mode. I've tried turning down the graphics settings. I've tried putting the EXE files on the list for DEP. Nothing.

I uninstall everything AGAIN and only install the base game. It starts fine. I go into CAS and just use whatever Sim they gave me. Moved him into a house. I go to buy him a bed and IT HAPPENS AGAIN. Black screen and buzzing. WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING AFTER UNINSTALLING EVERYTHING?!?!

I just got this computer (it's a desktop) around June of 2011. I have Windows 7 64 bit, NVidia Geforce GT 430 video card, 4GB RAM, 3GHz processor, 1TB (with around 626 GB free with all Sims games installed) hard drive. I updated my video card drivers. My computer is plenty fine enough to run this game, as evidenced by it working for all that time. I don't play other games so I don't know if this would happen in other games.

ETA: I do get the "your video card is not on the list of known ones so all settings are on high" or whatever dialog when I start just the base game, which according to my research is because its settings are higher than the Sims requires (or something like that). Like I said, though, my computer played this game fine until I tried to add that swing. Now it's not working even without it.

Someone please help me!!!!!!!!

Tl;dr - I've tried everything and am getting a black screen/buzzing crash even with just the base game. My specs are good enough to play the game. Help.

Okay, I didn't want to update the original post cuz it's already long enough. I was perusing the official forums and found some people say they right clicked the icon and "ran as administrator." I did that. My game *knock on wood* is running fine. I've played for a few minutes. However, I've noticed there's this black blinking thing on the outside wall of the house. The house next door's roof is black and also blinks. I'm guessing this has something to do with my video card and might have something to do with my problems. Just not sure what. I've played around with the settings but it hasn't gone away.

It sounds like a video card problem, or an update problem that's really rare and they haven't fixed yet... but lets hope that all will be fine, and you'll just have to deal with the black blinking in your game (better than not being able to play, right?)

Tell us if it happens again, we'll try to help.

Thanks for your reply! It definitely is better than not being able to play. I'm just stumped why, all of a sudden, my video card (most likely) is doing this!

I'm gonna reinstall all the EPs today and run as administrator and see if it still works. I'll report back.

I just installed WA. I played for a few minutes. No crash, no blinking. I think I got the blinking because I changed some graphics settings and got the pop up that said "restart the game or you could get weird graphics things going on."

I googled Sims 3 run as administrator and got a few results, but nothing that would explain why this seems to have fixed my problem. I'm just confused, but happy (if it's truly fixed).

EDIT: Well, it did it again. I lasted maybe five minutes. Installed Ambitions, was placing the firehouse, junk yard, etc. around the town when it crashed and I got the black screen/buzzing and had to restart my computer holding down the power button.

I'm out of options right now and extremely pissed off.

We should get Erry in this topic... he always knows what to do...

Have you tried updating your video card drivers?

Yes I updated my drivers.

Hmm... I'm clueless as to what this could be. What if you tried your game with Awesomemod? I'm not sure it'd do any help but it'd be nice to test various things.

I did think about that. I went over to the site and the specific thread but didn't see it updated to Showtime. I've never used it. Should I wait for it to be updated for Showtime?

I'd suggest so, let me see if there's a test version...

http://alpha.moreawesomethanyou.com/ts3/test/ There is, try it out and see if it can do anything.

All right. Gotta give me some time to install all the packs, etc. I'll let you know what happens.

Edit: Sorry. I've been busy. My birthday is tomorrow so I've been out doing stuff. I did manage to install the base game and WA. I tried playing it and it did the same thing. (I didn't install AM.)