Letters turning into question marks

[ZaneyN]

Im gonna be as thorough as I can with this.
I have Sims 2 and all the expansion and stuff packs downloaded other than seasons and whichever stuff pack normally comes with that (can't remember off the top of my head). I've been playing Sims on my laptop for a couple years. I have Windows 7 and the only thing really downloaded to my computer is sims and a couple online games. Sims has always worked fine for me but lately whenever I make a new family or use the cheat bar my letters will eventually turn into question marks. It types completely fine in all caps but only a few lowercase letters actually show up (s and i, I believe). It has happened the past few times I've run my game and it make things horribly complicated because I have to reboot the game, which takes forever, only to have it mess up again. I honestly have no idea what would be causing this.
Any help would be much appreciated.

[julianarosalia]

When you say downloaded, do you mean purchased a digital copy from EA's online store, installed from a physical DVD/CD or downloaded & installed from another online source?

[Peni Griffin]

All parts of your computer can downgrade over time with use wear. If you've been running graphics-heavy games on a laptop with integrated graphics, then performance will degrade as the chip breaks down in the struggle to keep up.

It's also possible for keyboards to wear out. I've worn out more keyboards than I like to say. That requires some pretty heavy keyboard use, but if you use a lot of cheat codes...

Post your system specs and let the people who understand them have a look at them. Also, go back and actually do the FAQ you were directed to when you created this post. Just because something on that list doesn't make any sense to you, doesn't mean it's not your problem! This is a complex game interacting with a complex system, and Chaos Law rules.

[whiterider]

Is it just things you type? How about text in the game itself, e.g. in the buy catalogue, does that show up ok?

When did this start? Did anything unusual happen, or did you change anything, beforehand?