Code 12 error in multi-eGPU setup

Invincible Sugar · February 15, 2025

I've been reading around a lot today trying to figure out what the issue is. I'm using a Lenovo P1 Gen 5, i7 12700H, 64GB RAM, with NVIDIA A2000 dGPU. Running Windows 11, version 24H2.

I'm trying to use four eGPUs, all NVIDIA. One 3080, one P1000, two M4000s. When I do this, all but one of the two M4000s work fine. I can live with that, so I unplugged one M4000. But now all work except for the remaining M4000.

Clearly, if the setup can support one M4000 when a second M4000 is plugged in but in code 12, that would indicate everything should work without the second M4000. I have tried both M4000's, it doesn't seem to matter which is unplugged. If both are plugged in one will work. If one is plugged in that one will not work. Something is going on with Windows not allocating resources correctly. But googling it I find 743 different ways to fix it...

Does anyone know how I can fix this? I've tried some troubleshooting but I don't want to break anything messing with a bunch of different experimental solutions. I'm hoping someone here with more experience can point me in the right direction. Thank you!

thekingofmonks · February 15, 2025

I've had my fairly big share of trouble with eGPUs and I gave up on my setup.

You can refer to the egpu.io forum, you'll probably get better help there.

Invincible Sugar · February 23, 2025

On 2/14/2025 at 11:16 PM, thekingofmonks said:

I've had my fairly big share of trouble with eGPUs and I gave up on my setup.

You can refer to the egpu.io forum, you'll probably get better help there.

Thank you! I ended up making a post there but no one has replied. I'm considering building a desktop to replace my laptop for this purpose, it's just, the laptop was $$$ and has more power than I need for, an actual laptop. I don't want to spend money on a desktop 1.5 years after buying this laptop. Any idea of other resources I could use?

I made another post on Reddit, where it was suggested this could be a driver issue NVIDIA creates on purpose. But I've seen other people use consumer and professional cards before. I'm worried that I might drop $2000 on a new PC build, even using used parts where I can, just to find the better PCIe bandwidth of a full desktop PC still doesn't provide the resources needed, or that some other conflict makes the setup incompatible. This is my hypothetical build here, which I'm toying with. It would cost a bit under $2k and use some things I already have.

If you have any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it!