Purchase of used processor leads to hardware ban in Valorant

A player from Germany purchased a used AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor on September 21 through the German classifieds service Kleinanzeigen. The processor functioned normally, but when launching Valorant, the Riot Vanguard anti-cheat system immediately excluded the player. Before changing the component, the game worked without issues. The Riot Games support service informed the buyer that the processor's identifier was blacklisted on August 12 due to the previous owner's use of cheats.

The buyer claimed that the anti-cheat subsequently blacklisted the motherboard and storage drive, and support refused to manually lift the ban. Riot Games representative Phillip Koskinas disputed some of these claims, stating that the Vanguard system does not block other components when detecting a blocked part, and the company did not find the specified support request.

Koskinas explained that hardware restrictions apply exclusively to the specific game and last no more than four months. The Riot Games support service can review the restriction and report the remaining ban period at the user's request.