Valorant Anti-Cheat Developer Responds After Gamer Buys Used CPU with Hardware Ban

Testing a new CPU in Valorant clearly did not go according to plan.

A player known as After-Cartoonist-196 recently ran into an unexpected problem when trying to play Valorant. In September, he bought a second-hand Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, and the game crashed immediately upon launch, even though everything had worked without issues on his old CPU.

He contacted Riot Games and discovered that the ID (serial number) of his new processor was on the Vanguard anti-cheat system blacklist. The CPU received a hardware ban on August 12, and the player assumes that the previous owner might have cheated in Valorant.

After-Cartoonist-196 says that following further communication with Riot Games, he found out there was nothing he could do to lift the hardware ban. In addition, he claims that because of the compromised processor, his entire PC is now at risk:

Because of this “locked” processor, my other components—the motherboard, hard drive, and so on—have now also been blacklisted.

Image source: Riot Games

This story went viral in the gaming community. Phillip Koskinas, head of the anti-cheat team at Riot Games, noticed the online discussions and explained that hardware bans last no longer than four months.

He also noted that the system does not ban all components if a single banned component is detected in a PC:

Hardware bans last for a maximum of 4 months, apply only to the game where cheats were detected, and we do not ban “everything else” if a single component matches. Support will tell you upon request how much time is left before the ban is lifted. If it were up to me, we would introduce “soul bans” that would follow cheaters even in hell.

It appears that the player After-Cartoonist-196 misunderstood something while talking to a Riot Games support representative.

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