RTX 5080 Laptop "Ghost Identity" Crisis: Healthy Silicon (179W) but Broken InfoROM/G-Sync Handshake (Vector 16 HX)

[syucedag]

Hi NotebookTalk community,

I'm reaching out to the MSI power users and VBIOS modders here. I’m currently dealing with a persistent and bizarre firmware-level "Identity" failure on my MSI Vector 16 HX AI (MS-15M3) equipped with an RTX 5080 Laptop GPU.

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The Paradox: Healthy Hardware vs. Digital Exile

My GPU is physically a beast, but its "passport" seems to have expired.

• The Muscle: In Discrete Graphics Mode, the card is perfectly healthy. It pulls a full 179W TGP and hits 2047 MHz core clock in stress tests. No thermal issues, no VRM failures.

• The Crisis: Despite the power, the handshake between the dGPU and the system/panel is broken:

  1. MSHybrid Visibility: The dGPU is completely invisible to the OS in Hybrid mode.

  2. G-Sync/Licensing: G-Sync is dead. Forcing it triggers screen flickering and "Display not supported" errors.

  3. The Sync Pipeline: Significant ghosting/latency persists even in Discrete mode, suggesting the frame delivery pipeline isn't authenticated.

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How It Happened (The Trigger)

This "Ghost Identity" state was triggered by a VBIOS update performed while the system was in a complex dual-boot state:

• Running Kali Linux with drivers installed via the .runfile.

• Envycontrol was managing the GPU switching states.

• I switched to Windows and flashed the VBIOS while the GPU was likely in a "confused" ACPI/Power state from the Linux session.

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Troubleshooting & NVFlash "Smoking Gun"

I've already tried the standard "revival" steps:

• VBIOS Rollback & Re-update: Successfully flashed back to factory and then to the latest. Both flashes were "successful" for the main ROM, but the symptoms remained.

• The 0x9F Wall: Using NVFlash, I can backup/flash the main ROM without issue. However, any command targeting the InfoROM partition returns Error 0x9F (Command Rejected).

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The Question for the Experts:

It appears the GSP (GPU Security Processor) has locked down the InfoROM/CCC partitions due to the state mismatch during the initial flash.

1. Has anyone seen this specific "Read-Only/Lockdown" state on Blackwell (50-series) mobile chips?

2. Is there a way to force-sync the GSP and InfoROM/Certificates without a full motherboard swap?

3. Does anyone have a factory SPI dump for the MS-15M3 that I can use to compare certificate blocks?

Any insights from the MSI firmware gurus would be life-saving.

Specs:

• Model: Vector 16 HX AI A2XWIG

• BIOS: E15M3IMS.116 / EC: 15M3EMS1.113