What's a Hardware Ban vs Account Ban?
An account ban suspends a specific game account — your Steam, Epic, Battle.net, or Riot login. Create a new account, you''re playing again. A hardware ban (HWID ban) blacklists your machine''s hardware identifiers — SMBIOS UUID, motherboard serial, disk serials, MAC addresses, GPU UUID, TPM endorsement key. Fresh accounts created on banned hardware get auto-banned within minutes. Hardware bans require either an HWID spoofer (Raw Spoofer randomizes 16 identifiers) or a different physical machine.
Understanding the difference between account ban and hardware ban determines what recovery actually requires. Account bans are recoverable cheaply. Hardware bans are recoverable only with a spoofer or new hardware. Mixing the two up costs people the wrong recovery decision (buying a new mobo when a spoofer would have fixed it, or vice versa).
Account ban — definition
An account ban suspends a single account's ability to play a game. The publisher's account database flags the account ID as banned. Login from any machine, anywhere, fails for that account. The ban is account-scoped, not hardware-scoped.
Examples:
- VAC ban on Counter-Strike — Steam account banned from all VAC-secured games
- Fortnite Epic account ban after EAC signature detection
- Marvel Rivals NetEase account ban after NeacSafe detection
- PUBG account ban after BattlEye detection
Recovery: create a new account, play again. Free in most cases (free-to-play games), one game purchase in others.
Hardware ban — definition
A hardware ban (HWID ban) blacklists your machine's hardware fingerprint. Every account that logs into the banned game from that machine inherits the ban. The publisher's anti-cheat reads hardware identifiers at game launch, compares them to a banned-hardware database, and refuses to start or auto-bans the account.
The identifiers anti-cheats typically read:
- SMBIOS UUID, manufacturer, product, BIOS strings
- Motherboard serial number
- All disk serials (SATA and NVMe)
- MAC addresses of every network adapter
- GPU UUID
- TPM 2.0 endorsement key (firmware-baked, unspoofable)
- RAM SPD strings
- Monitor EDID
- USB controller IDs
- MachineGuid (Windows registry)
Recovery: spoof the identifiers (with Raw Spoofer) or physically replace the hardware.
How to know which you got
Account ban indicators:
- Error message specifically names your account ("Your account has been banned")
- You can log in to other games from same machine without issue
- Creating a new account on the same machine works normally — you can play that game on the new account
Hardware ban indicators:
- Error message references hardware ("This device has been banned" or "Account banned due to detected violations")
- New accounts created on the same machine ban within minutes of first match
- You can log in fine but get kicked on match start with anti-cheat error
- Other games using the same anti-cheat (EAC, BattlEye, NeacSafe) all auto-flag your accounts
Cross-vendor cascading
Hardware bans propagate across games using the same anti-cheat vendor. Banned by EAC in Arc Raiders means EAC-protected Fortnite, Apex, Rust, and others auto-ban your fresh accounts on the same hardware. NetEase NeacSafe bans cascade across Marvel Rivals, Naraka Bladepoint, Identity V, Once Human. BattlEye bans cascade across PUBG, R6 Siege, Tarkov, Arma 3.
Account bans don't cascade across vendors
Account bans are scoped to the publisher / anti-cheat operator. A Fortnite Epic account ban doesn't affect your separate Steam account. A NetEase ban doesn't affect Epic. The cascade is purely on the hardware fingerprint side.
When account bans become hardware bans
Some anti-cheats escalate to hardware bans after pattern detection or repeat offenses. The first ban on an account might be account-only. The second confirmed cheat on the same hardware triggers a hardware ban. Modern policy (BattlEye, NeacSafe, Vanguard) often issues hardware bans on first detection for confirmed cheaters.
Recovery cost comparison
| Ban type | Recovery cost | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Account ban | Free (free-to-play) or one game purchase | Minutes — register new account |
| Hardware ban without spoofer | $1500+ for new motherboard, GPU, NICs, drives | Days — order and install |
| Hardware ban with spoofer | $30-50/month for Raw Spoofer subscription | 4 seconds per session |
The spoofer is the cost-effective recovery path. New hardware is overkill and incomplete (single component swaps rarely fix HWID bans — see will a new motherboard fix my HWID ban).
Preventing the escalation
The pattern most players follow: account ban first, decide it was a fluke, cheat on same hardware again, hardware ban second. Prevent this by running the spoofer from session one, treating the first account ban as a warning, and not assuming you can play on the same hardware afterward without protection.
For HWID protection see the HWID spoofer pillar. For broader avoidance see how to avoid getting banned. For ban recovery see how do I clean my PC after a ban.
Related Pages
Sources
- Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) FAQ — Valve
- About Easy Anti-Cheat — Epic Games
- BattlEye Support FAQ — BattlEye Innovations
Related Questions
No. A Windows format and reinstall clears the OS but leaves firmware-rooted hardware identifiers (SMBIOS UUID, motherboard serial, disk serials, MAC addresses, GPU UUID, TPM endorsement key) untouched. The anti-cheat reads these from the hardware, not from Windows. Fresh Windows install presents the exact same fingerprint to the anti-cheat. The real fix is an HWID spoofer (Raw Spoofer randomizes 16 identifiers in 4 seconds) or physical hardware replacement.
Run Raw Spoofer on cold boot before every cheat session to randomize 16 hardware identifiers (SMBIOS, motherboard serial, disk serials, MAC addresses, GPU UUID, MachineGuid, RAM SPD, monitor EDID). Use a paid cheat (free cheats trigger detections faster). Configure aimbot and ESP with humanizer settings — aggressive tuning gets accounts flagged which can escalate to hardware bans. Don''t run the cheat without the spoofer. The 4 seconds per session is the difference between recoverable and permanent damage.
Run Raw Spoofer to randomize 16 hardware identifiers (SMBIOS UUID, motherboard serial, disk serials, MAC addresses, GPU UUID, MachineGuid, RAM SPD, monitor EDID). The spoof persists until reboot. Optionally do a clean Windows reinstall to clear non-firmware traces (game launcher caches, anti-cheat driver caches). Format reinstall alone does NOT fix HWID bans because identifiers live in firmware. New motherboard rarely fixes it because other identifiers carry over. The spoofer is the real fix.
Modern anti-cheats fingerprint a composite of 16+ identifiers: SMBIOS UUID, motherboard serial, all disk serials (SATA + NVMe), every NIC''s MAC address, GPU UUID, MachineGuid (Windows registry), Windows Product ID, Windows install date, RAM SPD strings, USB controller IDs, PCI device IDs, monitor EDID, BIOS strings, TPM 2.0 endorsement key (unspoofable from user-mode), CPU ID, and Microsoft Remote Attestation. Raw Spoofer randomizes 13 of these; TPM EK and Pluton are firmware-baked and out of reach.
Rarely on its own. A new motherboard changes SMBIOS UUID, motherboard serial, and BIOS strings — but disk serials, MAC addresses on USB and discrete NICs, GPU UUID, RAM SPD, monitor EDID, TPM EK, and MachineGuid all carry over. Anti-cheats fingerprint composite matching across 16+ identifiers, requiring 5-8 matches to flag — single-component swap usually leaves enough matching identifiers to re-ban. Full hardware swap or an HWID spoofer is needed.
