Sims 3 unable to identify hardware

I bought the sims 3 last year and it worked perfectly on my windows 7 (32-bit) Hp laptop with intel i5 processor. But few months later the game displays the message "unable to identify hardware". If I ignore the message and continue to play, the game screen freezes for few seconds at every 10 - 15 seconds. Only the mouse can be moved during this freeze period. Lowering the graphics setting in options has not helped.

Would appreciate any help