2 nearly identical computers-1 will take Windows 10, 1 wont?

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Two older refurb laptops. Dell Latitude D630s. Both have duo core processors, one rated at 2.2ghz, the other at 2.0. The Bios are different. On the faster machine, the Bios ID ends in T04. The slower machine ended in A04, until I recently upgraded it to A19 at the Dell website.

The slower machine says its Bios (even after the upgrade) are not compatible with Windows 10.

The faster machine happily declares it is compatible.

I don't use the slower machine for anything much, so figured it'd be a good machine to put 10 on, for practice.

WHY would one machine be compatible and the other not?

Something similar happened with my desktop machine. It insisted it couldn't take Windows 10. I removed the hard drive, reinstalled Windows 7 on a new drive, and suddenly the machine said it'd accept Windows 10.

I'm currently reinstalling 7 on the slower laptop (same hard drive, tho'...don't have a blank handy), and am wondering if maybe it'll now say it CAN take 10 (especially since the Bios were upgraded).

Anyone have any ideas? (I don't suppose it'd be a good idea to risk trying to install the T04 Bios for the other machine on the slower one, would it?)

Does one have integrated graphics, the other dedicated ? that might be your problem without checking or seeing the mb it's the most probable thing for it to be.

I wouldn't try putting Windows 10 on any of them. Simply put, they are both too old to run any of the new stuff that is on Windows 10. For example, Windows 10 "prefers" a UEFI system more since BIOS is considered obsolete now. Windows 10 also comes with DirectX 12, and I'm not sure exactly how compatible that is with older integrated graphics cards (for example you're using GMA chips which have been superseded by Intel HD and Iris graphics).

The Windows 10 system requirements are at minimum:
- 1GHz IA-32 or x86-64 architecture CPU with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
- 2GB of RAM
- DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) 1 or higher driver
- 20GB hard drive space

Microsoft recommends:
- x86-64 architecture CPU
- 4GB of RAM
- WDDM 1.3 or higher driver compatible device

Microsoft kinda dropped the ball when it came to compatibility with Windows 10, though in their defense at this point all the things Windows 10 prefers will be completely standard on even the cheapest of PC's in the very near future (like multi-touch displays). It's one reason why they killed Internet Explorer for Microsoft Edge.

So while you may be able to get away with it I don't think you should bother with Windows 10. Windows 7 is really the latest I think you can "safely" go with them (though that's still pushing it since these laptops appear to have originally had XP and later offered with a Vista upgrade). I also think that when installing you should do a complete reinstall (don't do an upgrade) and reformat the drive into a single partition.

You could also go to the extreme opposite end and install a Linux OS instead.

I've found that DDR2-era PC's (like the Core 2 Duo) are right on the edge of Windows 10 compatibility, to the point that when it runs it's pre-install assessment, disk or disk interface type/speed, memory speed, graphics type & even BIOS settings actually can make just enough of a performance difference to tip the balance. It would be interesting to compare the actual hardware of the two laptops, as well as BIOS settings (not just version). Something as little as one 4GB so-dimm vs two 2GB can make a difference, as can integrated vs discrete graphics (& Dell used different chipsets for each), drive rotation & transfer speed. And even though Dell usually has pretty basic BIOS settings, a few can have a big impact such as enabling VM extensions, hyperthreading or energy/heat management settings.

Also, for the last two days I've been having similar problems with windows update on new installs of Win 7. I finally realized that on the machines I activated immediately after install (ie during install I set the OS to not even check for updates, completed the install, manually ran updates until current, then set to auto)...the problem disappeared. It took maybe ten rounds of checking for & allowing the update set + a reboot each time, but now all are nice, clean, current Win 7 boxes.

Consider yourself fortunate that Win10 won't run on the older machine.