Game was running fine and now it's not

[Tracer]

Hey there,

I've checked through the forum and haven't found any post outlining a problem like mine so I thought I'd post it and keep my fingers crossed. 
My game was running fine without any problems until yesterday.  All of a sudden my Sim (and her dogs) were stopping and starting and not just for a couple of seconds (up to 30 seconds of stop and maybe 10 seconds of movement).  The game is still going because even though the Sims have frozen the rest of the game is still going (I can see the trees moving and the music coming out of the speakers).  I always clean out my caches, thumbnails folder and the WorldCaches folder.  I am running three mods on it - OverWatch, ErrorTrap and MasterController - and I always have.  There have been a couple of times, recently, that when I quit the game it gets hung up.  The screen just goes and stays black with the little blue circle going around and around.  Sometimes I get the message that the program has stopped running and other times I have to use the Task Manager to end the program. 
I really hope someone can help me with this because I had to have my Sim work really hard to "get her man" and I really hate the thought of starting all over again....lol.  Let me know if you need any more info and I'll be happy to provide it.  Thanks a bunch!

[Odie]

Hi Tracer,

Welcome to the forum!
It sounds like The Sims got a little to much for your computer to handle maybe?
What are the specs?

[Tracer]

Thanks for the welcome...believe me, I'm glad to be here! 

I have an ASUS Notebook K53SJ, K53SV, K53SC Series with Intel Core i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30 GHz, 4 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M.  I just copied what's on the properties screen so if I've missed something just let me know and I'll get it.
Hubby just got me this computer at Christmas and if Sims 3 is too much for it then he's going to kill me when I ask for a better one!  lol

[Odie]

Sounds like a good computer to me, only the 4 GB could be the problem.
A notebook always get less good use out of the RAM then a desktop. More and more people with 4 GB are having problems. So did I and I tried everything possible, but in the end I got a better computer...
Doesn't mean you have to too! Besides, the processor, videocard etc sound really good. It would be nice if you could change the RAM to 8 GB.

Else you should make sure that your system is 64 bit and not 32.
Bad cc can be the problem.
Certain mods can ask very much of a computer. Don't forget that mods need to be updated with every patch.
And it's a good idea to turn off the in game store.

Also you can check out the forum better, because there are many threads that can help you, like:
- What to do if your game slows down
- How much RAM do you have
- Sims 3 stopped working after supernatural download
(these are links you can click on)

And there are many, many more tips to find, just check out the Technical Help board.

I hope this will help you find your way around here.

[Tracer]

Thanks, Odie.  I knew there was something I forgot to mention.  My system is a 64 bit.    I always make sure that I remove my mods prior to any patches and then I don't install them again until they've been updated.  The in-game store isn't turned on so it isn't that.  I had checked out the first thread you mentioned and have cleaned out my computer.  I don't have Supernatural so that isn't an issue.  I'll take a look at the other thread to see if I can pick up any pointers from it.  I thought maybe there was something wrong with the Sim I was using (it's one I created in CAS) because she started getting error code from ErrorTrap and then she started going to work naked (that was funny).  But I started another game using one of the families already in the town and ran into the same problem.  I'll go through all of my cc to see if any of it is bad and hopefully that will resolve it.  If not, I'll be back "creeping" through the forum to see if I can find any other pointers.