Sims 2 Huge Frustration Crashes

I'm having some major problems with the sims 2. and it seems that every person with vista is having the same problem. crashes... But the thing is the game works fine at certain times. I can go in to the neighborhood build houses even play the game for hours on end certain days. and then it just stops working altogether. there are no problems with my harddrive space as i have 137 gigs left, and i really dont think that the game would really need more space. and i know it doesn't. I'm running vista home basic, and the really frustration part is i know quite a bit of info on this computer. its a dell inspiron 1525 laptop i have played many games on it and they all work fine. but when i try to load a game that i had already previously saved it works and then other times when i go into it all the building tools launch but the screen for the actual house stays black and then i have to start the task manager to end the game. i have tried running it as an administrator and i still have the same problem. i had no problems with installing the game at all. i am almost positive it is my video card and after i post this im going to test it on can you run it?

i've read alot of similiar problems but none of them said that the game actually worked for a while. the game works for hours on certain days ( as i have said before) and then some days it doesnt work at all. I don't understand why it would work one day and not the next. i have the real version of the sims 2 double delux its not a hack so that isnt the problem. I am running on my system ( more in depth than i had previously said )