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HWID Ban Checker — Are You Hardware Banned?
Answer a few questions about your ban and we'll tell you exactly what type it is — account, IP, HWID, or temporary suspension — and what to do next.
STEP 1 / 7
What game were you banned from?
What is an HWID ban?
An HWID ban — short for Hardware ID ban — is the most severe type of restriction a game's anti-cheat can impose. Unlike a simple account ban, which only affects one login, an HWID ban targets your computer itself. The anti-cheat reads unique serial numbers from your motherboard, hard drives, network adapters, RAM, and GPU, then links them to the banned profile. Every new account you create on that machine gets flagged and banned automatically.
Major anti-cheat systems like EasyAntiCheat, BattlEye, RICOCHET, and Byfron all use hardware fingerprinting. When they detect a banned hardware profile, the ban follows your PC across accounts, operating system reinstalls, and even some hardware changes. A single swapped component usually isn't enough because anti-cheats track multiple identifiers simultaneously — they build a composite fingerprint from dozens of data points.
Hardware bans became widespread after 2020, when anti-cheat providers shifted from purely software-based detection to hardware-level telemetry. Today, games like Fortnite, Rust, Apex Legends, Call of Duty Warzone, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG, and Valorant all use some form of HWID tracking. Browse the complete supported games list to find the system behind a specific title.
The four types of game bans explained
Not every ban is a hardware ban. Understanding which type you have is the first step to getting back in the game. Each type has different causes, different symptoms, and different solutions. For a side-by-side breakdown of the three that get confused most often, read HWID ban vs IP ban vs account ban.
1. Account ban
The most common and least severe type. An account ban only affects your specific login — your username, email, and associated profile are restricted, but your PC remains clean. You can create a new account and start playing immediately. Account bans are typically issued for in-game rule violations like toxicity, team killing, or first-offense cheating. If you can make a new account and play without issues, your hardware is not flagged.
2. IP ban
An IP ban blocks your internet connection's public IP address from the game server. They're relatively rare in modern games because most residential internet connections use dynamic IPs that change periodically. If a VPN lets you play, you likely have an IP ban. Resetting your router or using any VPN service will typically resolve it. IP bans are most common in older games, private servers, and games with custom server hosting like FiveM or Minecraft.
3. HWID ban (hardware ban)
The most severe ban type. The anti-cheat fingerprints your PC by reading hardware serial numbers — motherboard UUID, disk drive serials, network adapter MAC addresses, SMBIOS tables, and sometimes GPU and RAM identifiers. This fingerprint is stored server-side. Every new account created on your machine gets matched against the banned fingerprint and flagged instantly. Neither VPNs, new accounts, new email addresses, nor fresh Windows installations will help, because your physical hardware identifiers don't change. The only solution is to spoof those identifiers before the anti-cheat reads them.
4. Temporary suspension
A time-limited restriction that expires on its own. Publishers use suspensions for first offenses, reported behaviour, or as a cooling-off period during an investigation. If the client tells you a date, or if the ban lifted by itself before, you are dealing with a suspension rather than a hardware block.
If two or more of these apply to your situation, you are almost certainly dealing with a hardware ban. Run the diagnostic above for a detailed assessment, or go straight to Download TraceX to permanently rewrite your hardware IDs and start playing again — free, no card required.
Frequently asked questions
An HWID ban is a hardware-level restriction. The anti-cheat records identifiers from your motherboard, drives, network adapters, RAM, and GPU, then blocks that fingerprint instead of just one account.
An account ban affects one login. An HWID ban follows your machine, so every new account you create on the same PC gets flagged automatically.
No. Reinstalling Windows changes software state, not the serial numbers burned into your hardware. The anti-cheat reads the same identifiers after the reinstall.
The checker maps your answers against documented enforcement behaviour per anti-cheat. It is a diagnostic guide, not a query against publisher databases.
Only if your ban is actually an IP ban. A VPN changes your network route, never your hardware identifiers.
TraceX rewrites the supported hardware identifiers anti-cheats read — permanently, in a one-time run — so your machine presents a clean fingerprint.
Any title running EasyAntiCheat, BattlEye, RICOCHET, Vanguard, ACE, GameGuard, Byfron and similar engines. See the supported games list for current coverage.
Using a VPN alone is not usually a bannable offense, though some publishers restrict region-hopping. HWID bans come from anti-cheat detections, not VPN usage.
It varies by publisher. Many hardware bans are permanent; some expire on a timer, and several publishers never publish a policy at all.
Rarely. Anti-cheats build a composite fingerprint from many data points, so swapping one component usually leaves enough matching identifiers to re-flag you.
You can test manually — new account, same PC, then new account on a different PC. If only the second one works, your hardware is flagged.