HP DV7 4057ca - versus - HP DV7 3152ca (compatibility)

[melomane13]

Hello to all 🙂

I own an "HP DV7 4057ca", which I love (and hasn't failed me yet) but I wish to buy another HP DV7 laptop as a backup, by only switching the hard drive, in a situation where the motherboard of my "DV7 4057ca" would fail. 

I have the chance to buy an "HP DV7 3152ca" which basicly seems to have the same specs as the "DV7 4057ca". 

Would a simple switch of the hard drive (from "4057ca" to the "3152ca") make the "3152ca" work without any driver glitches or malfunctions whatsoever (the goal is to have a backup without having to reinstall all my programs and copy all my files into the "3152ca")?

Thanking you in advance for all your time & cooperation on this matter, 

Melo 🙂

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You will probably have two issues:

1. The older model has the Nvidia graphics and yours has the AMD/Intel switchable graphics, so if uninstalling the AMD graphics doesn't allow you to install the Nvidia graphics you will probably have to reinstall Windows.

2. The other issue is that Windows may require re-activation since it will detect a different motherboard.

If that happens, you will need to use the Windows product key on the bottom of the DV7-3152ca's case to activate Windows.

The PC's seem to both come with Broadcom wireless cards, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I just wanted you to know that simply plugging in the hard drive and expecting everything to work perfectly as if nothing happened, most likely isn't going to happen.