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Will this work?

Discussion in 'Dell Latitude, Vostro, and Precision' started by rplace, Oct 11, 2011.

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  1. rplace

    rplace Newbie

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    I won't bore you with the why unless you care than I'd be happy to tell you. But I would like to get a laptop exactly like the one I currently have and swap a hard drive between the two of them. The end goal would be to have two of the "same" computers in different locations and just move the HDD back and forth. Assuming the BIOS and all the hardware is the same I can't see any problems. But I am more of a software guy not so much a hardware person. Anyone see any issues?

    I'll be using a solid state drive so not much concern moving the drive around.

    So far I have not found an exact match. Any thoughts on how different they could be and still give me zero problems? Would a slightly different processor or not exact DVD, blue tooth, modem difference give me fits?

    My current laptop is Dell E6500 Latitude with a 2.53GHz T9400 processor 4MB RAM and Win7

    Thanks!
     
    rplace, Oct 11, 2011
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  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    As long as you have the same motherboard (Intel/Nvidia) it should be fine... having the same mini PCIe cards and options helps, but I don't think it's necessarily critical.

    Heck, you could probably get away with not having the same motherboard, but you'll have to reboot or something every time you swap.

    Also make sure your BIOS settings are the same (especially AHCI, IRRT, etc).
     
    Commander Wolf, Oct 11, 2011
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  3. rplace

    rplace Newbie

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    Thanks C. Wolf! I have a line on a Latitude that is very close, but it has the 2.53GHz processor with 3M Cache (P8700) while mine has the 6M Cache (T9400). Beyond that as far as I can tell all the rest is the same. I figure I will make sure the BIOS is upgraded to the same on both. Could that slight processor difference matter, I'd guess not, but don't really know.

    Anything else to consider?
     
    rplace, Oct 11, 2011
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  4. rplace

    rplace Newbie

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    rplace, Oct 11, 2011
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  5. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    Having different processors won't be a problem.
     
    Commander Wolf, Oct 11, 2011
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  6. rplace

    rplace Newbie

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    Others I have talked to express concerns that Win7 will require activation on the 2nd computer. The current version of windows is not the Dell, OEM, that does not require activation it has been upgrated from XP to Win7 with a retail purchase. Any concerns there?
     
    rplace, Oct 12, 2011
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