Ok I finally updated my graphics card and downloaded the patch for the game. But when I play it my sims:

-Won't play the guitar. They'll take it out, move back and it'll disappear.
-I HAVE NO SKILL BOOKS!!! WTF? I have regular books, but no skill books. There are no skill books on the shelves of the bookcases nor are they at the bookstore.
-My sims will sometimes freeze. Literally freeze in mid action.

Anyone else having these problems? Is it the new patch? (I've followed the steps when installing patches and it hasn't helped.)

Also, even though I updated my graphics card, the sound on my game skips. Why? I think its the patches because I went in w/o any patches and the sound was fine.

And I have no mods, CCs, or World Adventures installed. Thanks in advanced.

Here is my comp:

Dell Dimension E310
BFG Nvidia 8400 GS 512MB Shader: 4.0
Pentium 4 2.80GHz w/ 2 GB of RAM

Yes, mine was doing the exact same thing after i downloaded the new patch. This is what i did......my game is working great now.
First i made a copy of my mods folder to my desktop.

Uninstalled my game completely....everything....then re-installed it. I did not download the download manager right off the bat. Once my game was installed it told me to download the new patch - i didn't.

I googled the patch 1.6.6 from 1.0 and installed the previous patch to the new one. I then downloaded the manager where i turned OFF the automatic updates. THen just reloaded all my custom content that i had.
I am having ZERO problems with my game....so far haha until they fix it. Or whatever...It was a pain in the butt but i basically just re-installed the older patch then made sure i turned OFF the automatic update thing.

Hope that helps....if not im sorry for your frustration...i felt it too

btvsman, please read the stickies.
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=381553