Buying used CPUs can expose users to existing bans from anti-cheat engines, and there's no way to check for violations before purchase

A gamer from Germany bought a used AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and got slapped with a Valorant ban. u/After-Cartoonist-196 shared the problem on the r/PCBauder subreddit [machine translated]; although the processor worked perfectly fine when they ran their computer, they were immediately kicked out after they fired up the game. When they reached out to Riot for support, they found out that the CPU they bought on Sep. 21, 2026, was blacklisted by Vanguard on Aug. 12, 2026, because its previous user apparently cheated on Valorant. However, while the CPU has a ban enforced, Riot Games says the ban duration is four months. In contrast, other anti-cheat engines enforce permanent bans using similar hardware ID systems.

Unfortunately, Riot customer service told them that they cannot reverse the ban, which stemmed from the CPU HWID and has seemingly affected the user’s Valorant account. …