Bitlocker with eGPU

I just bought a i7-1260p version and got everything working. I also got an Razor Core X with a RX6600 xt. Got it to connect without much of an issue. It actually worked out great because the Core also acts as my charger when I have it plugged in which makes the charger one less thing I have to pull out every night.

The issue that I’ve been having is when I plug in my Core then power up the laptop, it takes me to the blue BitLocker recover screen. This is a very small issue mind you, and is more quality of life than anything. The fix is simply to power off the laptop, unplug the eGPU then power up the laptop, then plug in the eGPU once the laptop is fully powered on.

Its more so out of curiosity as to why the laptop doesn’t like my eGPU when it boots up. And also does my Core X power supply being 650W do anything bad to my laptop, or does the laptop only draw what it needs?

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This is due to it detecting a major hardware change. BitLocker takes a hashed key of your hardware and if that changes it throws the recover screen. I had this issue with dual booting Fedora so I just turned BitLocker off.

It will only draw what it needs, Thunderbolt is basically an advanced PD/Data connection so it creates a handshaken connection and the laptop is like “Yeah, I can only take X” so it only sends X.

Honestly, unless you really want BitLocker I’d just disable it. Just open the start menu, type BitLocker, and select Manage BitLocker to get to the control screen. If you don’t want to keep running into this then that’s your best bet.

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Alternatively, you can set up bitlocker while booting up with the eGPU plugged in. This has the caveat that you have the inverse behavior when the eGPU isn’t plugged in, so it’ll prompt you for the recovery key then instead.

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Yea when the blue screen comes up asking for your recovery key due to a hardware change, you can just enter it and it will re-hash your system. After that as long as you don’t unplug you will be able to reboot and what not without having to enter it thereafter. This happens to me when I switch stuff out too.

Does this also happens when a Bitlocker password is used?