Ryzen bought second-hand returns to new owner along with “ban” in “Valorant” – anti-cheat program identifies cheater’s processor

When buying a used processor, there are often concerns about operational stability and the condition of the contacts. However, one Reddit user encountered a less obvious problem: after installing a second-hand Ryzen 7 5800X3D, he was unable to access Valorant. According to him, the processor is related to a hardware lock previously received by the previous owner of the CPU.

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user Tellthe chip itself worked fine, but when Valorant launched, anti-cheat Riot Vanguard immediately blocked access. With the previous processor, the game ran just fine. According to the buyer, Riot support told him that the device was blocked for cheating on August 12, and he purchased the processor on September 21.

After contacting Riot support, it was discovered that the previous owner had used cheats in the game and had received a Hardware Identification Number (HWID) ban. As a result, specific copies of Ryzen 7 5800X3D were blacklisted by Vanguard systems. Later, the restrictions were extended to other system components, including drives and motherboards. However, nThere is no independent confirmation of the circumstances of this story: information on the reason for the ban and Riot’s response was provided by the publication’s author.

However, it is technically possible to bind a hardware lock to the processor. Riot has previously described using TPM 2.0 for persistent hardware identification. This module is designed to use encryption keys and can exist as a separate chip or as a built-in platform function – fTPM. In Ryzen, fTPM functionality is executed by firmware in the secure AMD Secure Processor coprocessor built into the processor. Therefore, the identified security modules are specifically associated with the CPU execution instance and not just with the motherboard or installed Windows.

One of the identification methods is the TPM confirmation key – the authorization key (EK). The closed part is protected inside the module, but the open part is accessible to software and can be used to identify the device. Anti-cheat can compare it, or an identifier obtained from it, to its database of blocked devices.

According to Riot, the HWID ban is a measure that applies to physical components of the PC, not just player accounts. Using another account on such a blocked device will not solve the problem and may result in restricted access to the new account. Reinstalling Vanguard, Windows, or the game itself does not remove the VAN 152 hardware limitation. Riot specifically noted that blocking fTPM-based hardware on AMD platforms could force cheaters to switch processors to avoid detection again.

The new owner of the processor has no choice but to wait for the hardware lockout to end, which typically lasts about 4 months for HWID. History shows that the health of the processor used does not always guarantee the ability to use it in all games. But because the lock is stored in Riot’s system, the chip itself won’t fail and can continue to work in other applications.