My game is crashing, I can't figure out why?

[ella_in_wonderland]

(I asked this in the wrong thread, so I just copy/pasted what I asked there)

My game crashed twice yesturday so I removed a bunch of recently downloaded CC, only to find afterwards that I had two default replacement baby bottles. My question is: could having two default replacements be the cause of my game crashing?

EDIT - I removed one default bottle, but my game still crashed. It seems to be crashing when I leave it - I left the screen for 10/15 minutes to help with dinner and when I came back the screen was black and a pop-up said "Power Saving Mode".
I was also building a house this afternoon and it crashed after about 15 minutes. It has now crashed 4 times in total. It's been fine for 4 years and this is the first time it's started crashing! Does anyone know why this could be happening?

Another edit: Oh, sorry, these are my system specs:

System:
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 3

Computer:
Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU
E2200 @ 2.20 GHz
2.21 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM

It's 32-bit and I've only used 73.5 GB out of 159 GB (if that matters)

[simsample]

Does it crash with a fresh set of user files?

http://modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game%20Help:Game%20Problem

[ella_in_wonderland]

Okay, I've narrowed the problem down to corrupted CC. Thanks for the tutorial simsample!

[simsample]

Good work! You could use the 50% method to find the problem files. :)

[MattShizzle]

One thing that's easier is to look at the most recently installed CC. Faster anyway and if it suddenly was doing that it's almost certainly something installed since you last played.

[simsample]

That's all covered in our articles:
Game Help:Finding Problem Custom Content

[MattShizzle]

Only problem with the "sort by date" is a lot of time the date is the date it was created or uploaded rather than when you added it.

[ella_in_wonderland]

I re-did the whole process just to make sure and I think I must have done it wrong the first time. I removed my Downloads, LotCatalog and SavedSims folders and then tested them seperately. When playing with my Downloads folder there was no crashing. However, with the LotCatalog folder it crashed. I have one custom lot in that folder - could this be causing the problem? (are custom lots even supposed to go in that folder?)

[Ghost sdoj]

Yes.

You don't install them to the Lot Catlog, but they turn up there. And a corrupt lot can cause trouble as easily as any other bit of CC can.

[simsample]

Yes, it could be a lot causing the problem. Just do the 50% method on those files in the Lot Catalog folder.

Yes, custom lots are meant to go in that folder- that's where the Sims2Installer puts Sims2Pack lots.

[ella_in_wonderland]

Hmm I deleted the lot (never used it anyway) but my game's still crashing. Now I know that it's not caused by any folder (downloads, lotcatalog or savedsims). I was thinking that it could be caused by my fan or my graphics card overheating, but I've had my desktop for 4 years and it's never happened before. Does anyone have another idea of why it's crashing?

EDIT: Nevermind, technician came over and he says it's probably the graphics card overheating. I can't play until I get new fans (ugh) Anyway, Thank-you everyone for your help! :)