A Valorant player on Reddit claims they received a hardware ban after installing a secondhand CPU purchased on September 21, with the original owner's ban dating back to August 12. Riot Games anticheat head Phillip Koskinas disputes the story, stating hardware bans last a maximum of four months and cannot "infect" other components in a new system.
A German Valorant player found themselves hardware banned after purchasing a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D whose previous owner had cheated in the game. Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat system flagged the CPU's serial number, and the ban extended to every component in the player's rig. The incident raises serious questions about buying used PC hardware for competitive gaming.
Valorant's anti-cheat software, Vanguard, faces criticism after a recent update allegedly caused PC issues for some players, including false bans and system crashes. Riot Games assures that Vanguard does not brick PCs or components, despite initial joking tweets suggesting otherwise. Affected players, including some claiming innocence of cheating, report severe technical troubles.
