Screen flashes black or disappears, then turns white and freezes.

CityofJade  If you haven't already, please force the game to run in DirectX 11 mode.  Open the EA App, select Sims 4 > Manage > View properties, and add -dx11 to the command line box.

If this doesn't or didn't help, please provide a dxdiag.  Click Windows key-R, enter dxdiag in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the file to your desktop.  From there, you can attach it to a reply using the paper clip (Attachment) icon included with the other formatting buttons.

It unfortunately did not solve the problem. Here is the file, thank you

CityofJade  Your dxdiag lists a few serious crashes of the graphics driver, so please do a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver.  Here's how:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html

Use the newest driver HP provides for your laptop.  Go here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/laptops

Enter your serial number, choose your OS (just Windows 11 is fine) if prompted, click All Drivers, expand Driver-Graphics, and download the newest Intel driver, by version number.  The first number matters most, as in, 32 is newer than 31.  After that, the last four numbers matter: 8000 is newer than 7000.

You may still need to play in DirectX 11 mode, depending on how new the HP-provided driver is.

Initially, it seemed this solved things. I ran the game for a few sessions with no problems. But then it started right up again! Not as constant as before but it is still happening. Is there something that is causing a corruption in my drivers?

CityofJade  It's unlikely that a driver would become corrupted again without anything else happening to the system.  I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I would look elsewhere first.  So please post a fresh dxdiag and I'll take a look.

The crashes have also started happening without flickering of the black and white screen. 

I am glad I found this thread. The exact same thing just started happening to me yesterday for no apparent reason. My screen will flicker while in the game (in live or build mode) and then eventually turns white and I have to force quit through Ctrl+Alt+Delete. I have repaired the game and cleared cache and neither helped resolve the issue. I do have mods/CC installed, but I made sure all mods are up to date as of today. I just bought my laptop earlier this month so I would be surprised if this was a hardware/software issue. I've provided a dxdiag attached. 

Any suggestions for a fix would be appreciated!

CityofJade  I apologize for the late reply.  I've been away from the forum for a while and am still catching up.  I do notice in your dxdiag that you're running Sims 4 in DirectX 9 mode again, so please switch back to DX11 mode, again, and see whether it helps now.  The Sims 4 crashes listed are pretty specific to your class of graphics chip and DX9 mode and should go away in DX11 mode.

Tabitha524  The errors in your dxdiag are all crashes of the graphics driver, which could easily be the reason Sims 4 is crashing too.  You already have the newest driver Dell provides for your laptop, so try doing a clean uninstall and reinstall of the driver, as described here:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html

You can get a fresh copy of the Intel graphics driver here:

https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/inspiron-16-5640-laptop/drivers

If that doesn't help, try installing the newest driver from Intel:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236795/intel-core-7-processor-150u-12m-cache-up-to-5-40-ghz/downloads.html

It's typically best to use the driver provided by the laptop manufacturer, but not if that driver has a problem, or might have a problem.

If you get more crashes with this newer driver installed, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day.  Today is on the right.

Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent Sims 4 crash.  If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here.  If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.

I've discovered the randomest solution. In a moment of desperation, I took my computer off of laptop mode from settings in game. After a restart I've had no problems. I've played for three days to make sure it wasn't a fluke but it's holding strong. I don't know if laptop mode was the problem but it's somehow fixed it.