I am losing my mind with this problem! I just bought the Sims 2, downloaded it without any diffuculty, but when I run it I can only stay in it for a few minutes before my computer shuts itself off. I can keep my laptop on allnight and it will be fine to work in the morning, but when i try to run software it shuts off. I tried downloading nortin antivirus and in the middle of the system scan it shut off, without fail, all seven times i attempted (so far it had found 19 viruses)... how am i supposed to fix this if i cant even get through a system scan to determine what the problems are?? Should i clean the memory and start fresh? Should I spend money and take it somewhere to be looked at? I know I don't need to play the sims, but i paid for it, and i cant return it, so i want to know how to fix this problem. PLEASE HELP !!!

Barring hardware failure, I'd say with 19 viruses you should reinstall, then go update your software from MS and plug those holes.

Also, check to see if your system meets the specs for playing Sim2. From what I recall it has some pretty hefty requirements.

i know it meets the specifications, i made sure of that before i bought the software, and actually, it meets them with room to spare on all points. i suppose i shouldnt try to fix things myself though, seeing as i havent done something like that before, and would probably render my laptop completely useless... grrr.... this is going to take so much more effort than a slacker like myself is used to putting forth.

Just a word of advice .I loaded Sims on a friends machine 'XP' , and it took about 3 attempts.
You must read the installation instructions carefully .I found them convuluted, but It did work.
More importantly .If you reload your O/S (and I think you should),load Sims before you load Norton, there are conflicts between them.I ended up shutting off Norton sub-routines in Processes tab of Task Manager.