I agree fully that ASUS cheaped out on the power supply for the G74: the following is my estimate of the minimum wattage that the G74 needs at "full throttle":

Core i7 2630QM Processor TDP (max)= 45W
NVIDIA 560M (max) = 75W
Chimei Innolux 17.3 LED (N173HGE-L11/L21) = 9.3W
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB 7200RPM (x 2) = 3.1W each x 2 = 6.2W
Intel HM65 Chipset TDP = 3.9W

Total ~ 140W. This doesn't even account for the power required by the motherboard! In desktops you always bank on another 75W for just the motherboard (when you're buying a PSU for example), but since the G74's is smaller it'll probably be closer to half that, say 35W. So thats 175 watts right there, that you're trying to pull from a 150W supply. No wonder Chastity warns against it.

Whether a higher wattage PSU fixes the throttling issue is another thing. I personally doubt it, but this would be easy to test: anyone who has bought one of those 180W supplies could try and recreate the conditions for throttling (run Prime95 and furmark together for example) and see. I bet it still happens.

dstrakele wrote:
It does make you wonder if it would help out some of the folks whose USB 3.0 HDD's stop transfer in the middle of a backup or copying a large file....

those HDDs you refer to are units that operate on a larger power draw than the standard USB spec.

For example, the WD External USB 1TB drive requires 5v 0.7a for proper usage, and the USB spec is 5v 0.5a. Many PC makers have ports supplying 1.0a, but on notebooks, where power consumption is a factor, many stick to USB spec. In comparison, the Seagate USB 1TB drive only requires the 0.5a, and has no issues.

On the G74SX, the USB 3 port can be enabled to supply 0.9a with the Quick Charge feature.

In conclusion, if your external HDD does not work on the power supplied by our USB ports, then it's out of spec. 🙂

Chastity the Targus unit comes with 3 tips, L1 L2 and L3. Which is the one used for the G74? Or you bought an extra tip?

Chastity@ASUS wrote:
those HDDs you refer to are units that operate on a larger power draw than the standard USB spec.

For example, the WD External USB 1TB drive requires 5v 0.7a for proper usage, and the USB spec is 5v 0.5a. Many PC makers have ports supplying 1.0a, but on notebooks, where power consumption is a factor, many stick to USB spec. In comparison, the Seagate USB 1TB drive only requires the 0.5a, and has no issues.

On the G74SX, the USB 3 port can be enabled to supply 0.9a with the Quick Charge feature.

In conclusion, if your external HDD does not work on the power supplied by our USB ports, then it's out of spec. 🙂

Chastity - all this is only for those External USB drives which are taking power only from USB , or even those which have their own electric power connection to the mains ?

aviwil wrote:
Chastity - all this is only for those External USB drives which are taking power only from USB , or even those which have their own electric power connection to the mains ?

Chastity's comment refers only to drives that draw their power from USB2.0 (max 500ma @ 5V = 2.5W for this standard), and not drives that have their own separate power supply.

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?2329-ATTENTION-G73-53SW-Owners-CPU-Throttling-to-798mhz-and...

dkillone wrote:
Yes that very well could be part of the problem, but its already been proven that using a higher watt psu such as the 180w one, does not stop the throttling. I actually just got my 180w earlier this week and it definitely throttles no matter what unless I use throttlestop.

Now we just have to keep hoping that Asus finds the exact problem, and puts out a solution for us, since it seems not many care now, but this will only get worse as more demanding applications are found to cause throttling.