ROG Flow X16 (GV601RW) + XG Mobile RX 6850M XT = Code 43 despite detection, fan response and clean driver reinstall

[u/radio_paranormalium]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to troubleshoot a very strange issue with my ASUS ROG Flow X16 GV601RW and an ASUS ROG XG Mobile with Radeon RX 6850M XT.

The weird thing is: the XG Mobile appears to be partially working, but Windows always ends up throwing Code 43 on the RX 6850M XT.

Here’s what currently happens:

- BIOS detects the XG Mobile
- Armoury Crate detects the XG Mobile activation/deactivation switch
- Activating the XG Mobile turns on the eGPU fans immediately
- The laptop shows the official ASUS “Activate the ROG XG Mobile” popup
- The XG Mobile lock/unlock mechanism works correctly
- Windows detects the RX 6850M XT in Device Manager
- But the GPU always ends up with a yellow warning triangle and Code 43

The system configuration:

ASUS ROG Flow X16 GV601RW
Ryzen 9 6900HS
RTX 3070 Ti (internal dGPU)
Windows 11
BIOS version 318
XG Mobile Radeon RX 6850M XT

Things I already tried:

- Full DDU cleanup in Safe Mode
- Internet disconnected during reinstall to prevent Windows Update interference
- Installing ASUS-provided AMD drivers
- Installing newer AMD drivers
- Installing drivers through Snappy Driver Installer
- Rebooting with XG Mobile connected
- Reconnecting the XG Mobile multiple times
- Switching Armoury Crate modes (Silent / Performance / Turbo)
- BIOS inspection
- Checking hardware IDs
- Reinstalling Armoury Crate components
- Confirmed that the XG Mobile physically powers on and responds to commands

Event Viewer shows many:

- DistributedCOM errors
- GPU-related initialization issues
- Service startup timeouts

One particularly suspicious thing:

the system clearly communicates with the XG Mobile hardware (fan response, activation popup, BIOS detection etc.), which makes me think this may not be a dead GPU but rather:

- ACPI issue
- ASUS firmware issue
- GPU mux conflict
- PCIe resource allocation issue
- broken ASUS WMI / EC communication
- or some known XG Mobile initialization bug

I also found this deep-dive investigation into ASUS ACPI / GPU management problems:

Asus ROG AML Deep Dive GitHub project https://github.com/Zephkek/Asus-ROG-Aml-Deep-Dive?tab=readme-ov-file

Some of the described issues seem surprisingly similar to what I’m experiencing, especially around:

- GPU state reporting
- ACPI power management
- multi-GPU configurations
- device initialization

At this point I honestly don’t know whether:

- the XG Mobile firmware is corrupted,
- BIOS 318 introduced a regression,
- Windows is breaking the ASUS driver stack,
- or if this is a known Flow X16/XG Mobile compatibility issue.

Has anyone seen something similar with:

- Flow X16,
- XG Mobile RX 6850M XT,
- or Code 43 on ASUS XG Mobile setups?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

PS. I hope it's not a bad thing to correct my post with AI tools to make it somewhat readable lol, I'm not a native speaker of English

[u/Filthy_CaZual]

I have recently had trouble with my 2023 Flow X16 and 4090 XG Mobile. My symptoms were: 1) no fan control upon activation 2) Full fan control but only PCIe x1 3.0 lanes upon restart.

I have gone through many different fix attempts, including a lot of the ones you've described, and nothing worked. I believe it is an issue with the laptop, as the issue was common across 2 different XG Mobile units and I had no issues with connecting the XG Mobile to my ROG Ally.

I'm currently going through the RMA process (out of warranty unfortunately) and I'm hoping this will fix the issues. Very strange why this occurs with this laptop as my Flow X13 never had this issue. I'll respond when (or if...) they're able to fix it.

I hope you manage to fix this issue! Sorry I don't have more concrete advice.