My son just came into possession of a better computer then the one he has now. Long story short a friend of his gave it to him but it doesn't have a hard drive. He wants me to take the hard drive from his current computer and put it into this newer one. Is it possible to do that or will that create problems with the difference in components?

Can you do it? Sure. Will it work? Depends. What O.S. is on the drive? What are the hardware specs of each machine? If you're running Windows 7, there's a very good chance it will just work. Might require a restart or two and a few updated drivers, but Win 7 is fantastic about this sort of thing. You also may need to re-activate at some point during the process, hopefully after it gets the network card driver. If you're running Vista the chances of success are reduced, but not to the point that it is unlikely to succeed. If running XP, unless the hardware is very similar (and I mean almost identical) the chances of success are highly unlikely. However, XP has a nifty feature called a repair install which, if you have your original install disk, you can perform which may allow the procedure to work without having to reload the O.S. entirely. If this is the case and you need help with this process, just post back (or Google XP repair install) for further instructions. Good luck, and congrats on the upgrade!

The computer he is using now is Win7. The computer he was given is very different so no components would be the same. I'll let him know and if we get stuck I'll come back here. Thank you for the help. Wouldn't it be easier in the long run to get a new hard drive, install Win7, and transfer the data from one hard drive to the other?

The computer he is using now is Win7. The computer he was given is very different so no components would be the same. I'll let him know and if we get stuck I'll come back here. Thank you for the help.

It will almost certainly just simply work, then.

Wouldn't it be easier in the long run to get a new hard drive, install Win7, and transfer the data from one hard drive to the other?

Lots less work to just put the drive in and see how it goes. A reload and data migration is a lot of work, far more than the 10 minutes or so it would take to just stick the drive in and reboot a couple times after automatic driver installation by the O.S.

Thank you for the help, I truly appreciate it and so does my son. His next question is about the performance. He has been trying to learn FSX (okay maybe I've been pushing him a little) and right now the computer he is using has a Phenom 9750 quad core in it. The one he was given has an Athalon II x4 640. He wants to know if the difference he will see will be worth the swap or not.

Some software packages (e.g. add-ons) might detect the changed hardware environment and request re-activation. Cheers, - jahman.

Thank you for the help, I truly appreciate it and so does my son. His next question is about the performance. He has been trying to learn FSX (okay maybe I've been pushing him a little) and right now the computer he is using has a Phenom 9750 quad core in it. The one he was given has an Athalon II x4 640. He wants to know if the difference he will see will be worth the swap or not.

Should be a good deal faster, I'd say 20-30% depending upon how much the lack of L3 cache affects performance.

Should be a good deal faster, I'd say 20-30% depending upon how much the lack of L3 cache affects performance.

I apologize for asking what might be a silly/simple question but "L3 cache"? So the cache stores information to lower latency correct? Does that mean his current Phenom has it and the Athlon doesn't? Is this something he should be worried about? Other then FSX he plays Starcraft and a few other games to a much lesser degree. All the software he has is original so reactivation/registration won't be an issue.

I apologize for asking what might be a silly/simple question but "L3 cache"? So the cache stores information to lower latency correct? Does that mean his current Phenom has it and the Athlon doesn't? Is this something he should be worried about? Other then FSX he plays Starcraft and a few other games to a much lesser degree. All the software he has is original so reactivation/registration won't be an issue.

The Phenom features an L3 cache which, as you said, helps to reduce latency of memory access by a data pre-fetching algorithm. The Athlon II lakes this, however it has the first 2 levels of cache that have been standard in x86 CPUs for over a decade. The inclusion of an L3 (level 3) cache has been a more recent phenomenon (haha, see what I did there?). The exclusion of an L3 cache will affect CPU performance, although the increased clock speed will more than offset it. I say this because the difference between Athlon II and Phenom II processors has been measured to be somewhere on the order of 10-15% at the same clockspeed, with the only difference between these processors being the L3 cache. The Athlon II/Phenom II have some performance enhancements over the Phenom, somewhere between 5-30% faster at the same clock speed (Phenom II). Add all these things up and it comes out to somewhere in the range of 20-30% faster as I mentioned previously.

LOL, good pun. So that sounds great and I had him read your post. I'll help him make the swap and post back here if he encounters any problems.

You know what there is one more thing. What about the RAM? He has DDR2 and wants to move it over; however, there is one stick of DDR3 in there. Should he leave it in and put his RAM behind it or should he remove it so only his DDR2 is in there. Actually will the motherboard even work with his DDR2 RAM?

It is most unlikely that the MB can accept both DDR2 and/or DDR3 RAM. There were some back in the day as DDR3 was quite new and very expensive, but only a few. If the MB has only DDR3 slots, DDR2 modules cannot be fitted.