Using old drive in new computer

As a final note, you folks have been extremely helpful in getting me and my trivial problems ironed out, I thank you very much!
I ended up with a i7, 4500 series processor, 8 g ram(for now), 500g hdd, nvidea 750 video card, windows 7 pro-64 bit. Final tally was just under $700. It should be on my desk tomorrow or Wednesday, I will post a screen shot of the specs as it recognizes them at that time.

Bob Myers said:

I will post a screen shot of the specs as it recognizes them at that time.

OK--if you can, try to give us some idea of how much faster it is than the old PC using your CAD software as you normally would use it.

For instance, if a job took an hour on the old machine, how quickly could it be done on the new one? I'm just looking for a real world comparison that might tell more than a Passmark benchmark comparison.

You should be able to easily figure out if adding more RAM would help.

I only opted for the smaller ram, a single 8g at this time because end of year money is tight, It has an empty slot so adding a second one will be easy if needed

As a comparison I have intended on playing a few mp3 tunes in the background and develop a drawing, and do a motion rendering on this unit, then play same mp3 and draw same drawing on new machine, to do just what you suggest. Will advise!

Did you decide you want to move the hard drive into the new PC to try that first, use the factory installed Win7, or do a Clean Reinstall Windows 7?

Since it hasn't been explicated beyond the link Ignatz posted earlier, to move the hard drive you presently have it would need to be SATA, swapped in to replace the present one for adjustment. Then enter BIOS setup to enable CSM or Legacy BIOS to disable any UEFI settings present.

Now boot the PAR disk provided to Adjust Win7 to boot on new hardware with Paragon Adaptive Restore CD to do P2P Adjust which might prompt for SATA controller driver in order to do its magic. That driver along with all others will be on the PC's Support Downloads webpage if not in the PAR disk which contains the Win7 driverstore.

After adjust, reboot the PC to see if it will start and if not confirm that the correct partition is Partition Marked Active then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until it starts. If it won't start even then there is likely more BIOS settings that need adjustment, so post back camera snaps of any UEFI, CSM, Legacy BIOS and BIOS BOot Priority order settings.

Once it starts it should swap out all drivers in a cascade which can be monitored from the animation in the System Tray. After several reboots, once all drivers are swapped, install the PC's Network driver from its Support Downloads webpage if necessary - you can plug in by ethernet wire to maximize chance it will start up connected.

Once online enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3), Check for Updates, install all Important and Optional except Bingware, with reboots, until no more are offered. Even under Optional there will be patches needed to make hardware and software run correctly.

Next check Device Manager to import any drivers still missing from the PC's Downloads page. We can help you find any of these. Observe functions like cam, hotkeys, backlighting, etc. to see if they work as these softwares may be needed from the Downloads page too, but should only be added as needed to keep the install cleanest.

Now you're ready to test performance to see how this compares to the factory install or if there is any doubt doing a perfect Clean Reinstall Windows 7. Even if you don't do one the tools and methods in that tutorial will assure you are doing everything that works best with Win7 based on tens of thousands of cases we've helped with here.

My builder claimed the MB was a dual, and my running only one strip will bog it a bit(just as you say), but as I mentioned earlier, money is tight today, in about 5 weeks i'll buy the other strip and it'll be perking at whatever it is supposed to be doing,,hopefully.

Bob Myers said:

My builder claimed the MB was a dual, and my running only one strip will bog it a bit(just as you say), but as I mentioned earlier, money is tight today, in about 5 weeks i'll buy the other strip and it'll be perking at whatever it is supposed to be doing,,hopefully.

Yeah, if I understand you correctly your new PC's motherboard has only 2 slots---and you are using just 1 of those 2.

You will suffer, but only slightly, from using that single 8 GB stick compared to using two 4 GB sticks.

In a RAM hungry situation, you are better off with more slow RAM than less faster RAM, so you are doing the right thing if you need more than 8 total eventually and money is short right now. When you buy the additional 8 GB stick, match it as close as possible to the one that's in there now--down to the level of size, voltage, brand name and model number if possible.

That is what was recommended by folks here, and in one of the links that was given for a school mini requirement