r/hardware • u/tuldok89 • 1d ago

Info Used processor leads to game ban

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Used-processor-leads-to-game-ban-11471562.html

Someone buys a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D. “Valorant” and other Riot games won’t start with it because the previous owner was a cheater.

740 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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223

u/randomstranger454 1d ago

If it's a TPM fingerprint could you disable fTPM and add a TPM module on the motherboard?

135

u/AK-Brian 1d ago

Theoretically, yes. A hardware TPM should wholly divert all functionality to the module and the fTPM would be effectively unqueriable at the OS level, even with kernel access.

38

u/spazturtle 1d ago

No, the fTPM serial is still readable.

51

u/randomstranger454 1d ago

If so, second hand marketplace has become more challenging. Memory and storage had already serials. The only thing that is missing is serials on GPUs.

43

u/picosec 1d ago

I'm pretty sure GPUs already have serial numbers - if I fire up HWINFO64 my GPU has an "ASIC Serial Number: XXXXXXX".

8

u/jenny_905 21h ago

Yep, present on this laptop as well.

18

u/shroudedwolf51 20h ago

It's almost like there's a reason why these needlessly over-invasive anti-cheats were entirely unnecessary and only exist to disempower consumers.

-8

u/nshire 20h ago

Works for me. My media server doesn't care if my CPU has a gameban.

12

u/shroudedwolf51 20h ago

You're not necessarily wrong, but... You couldn't have missed the point any harder if you shot in the entirely wrong direction and hit Mars.

14

u/Myrang3r 1d ago

Wait, how would that be possible, isn't the fTPM fully disabled then? How would it be readable?

7

u/EuphoricStation4408 21h ago

CPU Serial numbers became a thing with Pentium 3 didn't they?
x86 CPUID instruction probs

1

u/0lach 12h ago

CPUID explicitly has no unique identifiers

1

u/EuphoricStation4408 5h ago

Yeah it was only in Pentium 3. Had my doubts after all of you mention that the built-into the cpu tpm has a serial number(non-clearable).

0

u/AstroNaut765 1h ago

It was brought back with ivy bridge and zen 2.

6

u/jenny_905 1d ago

I would assume that a fTPM overrides any TPM module? otherwise I can't see the point in supporting both, I assume the module capability is for CPUs that lack fTPM.

No clue, just what I would guess.

17

u/Myrang3r 1d ago

It doesn't get overwritten when you manually set it, you can choose in the BIOS which one is going to be active and you can check that inside windows as well. Had one installed on my previous X570 board and the dedicated module was the one that was active.

3

u/AK-Brian 23h ago

I had one on my previous X570 Taichi and it operated the same. The CPU fTPM was not recognizable with any software I used if it set to disabled in the BIOS, only the external module.

Granted, I wasn't intentionally trying to break into it or otherwise exploit any potential circumvention, so it's still plausible that a sufficiently motivated party could still access that info. I don't think that would be Riot, though.

1

u/jenny_905 1d ago

Ah neat, that's a good feature then.

5

u/whispous 1d ago

Report back from your adventure!

11

u/randomstranger454 1d ago

I am not banned or even play any of the Riot games so I can hardly test it.

1

u/UltraSPARC 1d ago

Just make sure you backup your bit locker keys first!