Bought a Used CPU, Got Banned: Valorant’s Hardware Ban Transfers with Second-Hand CPUs
A German gamer learned a costly lesson about second-hand hardware when he purchased a used AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D on September 21, 2026 and found himself immediately banned from Valorant upon launching the game. TechPowerUp
The CPU’s previous owner had been caught cheating and hardware-banned by Riot Games’ Vanguard anti-cheat system on August 12. That ban came with the processor.
The mechanism behind the transfer lies in AMD’s fTPM; a Trusted Platform Module integrated directly into the CPU rather than the motherboard. Riot’s Vanguard uses TPM 2.0 identifiers to flag hardware, meaning when the CPU is the source of the TPM ID, the ban effectively travels with the chip.
Phillip Koskinas, Riot’s anti-cheat lead, confirmed that hardware bans last a maximum of four months and apply only to games where cheating occurred. Based on the August 12 ban date, the affected CPU should be playable again around mid-December 2026. Riot found no record of the buyer’s support ticket.
There is currently no official way to verify whether a used CPU carries a Valorant ban before purchase, leaving second-hand buyers with little protection. Read our previous article on Gaming and Cybersecurity related news here.
