Riot’s May 2026 Vanguard Update Disables $6,000 Cheat Rigs via IOMMU Enforcement

8 articles · Updated · tech.sportskeeda.com · May 22

Riot’s May 2026 Vanguard update is knocking offline hardware-cheat setups in Valorant by corrupting firmware on PCIe DMA devices masquerading as NVMe or SATA SSDs.
The change tightens IOMMU enforcement, triggering repeated page faults and restarts that disrupt custom FPGA firmware used to hide the DMA hardware from Windows and Vanguard.
Affected users report the paired SSDs and DMA devices become unusable even after uninstalling Valorant, though the report says the lockout can be reversed by reflashing firmware and reinstalling Windows.
Only players running these hardware cheats are affected; normal Valorant users’ SSDs continue to work, despite viral claims that the update broadly bricks storage devices.
The move escalates Riot’s kernel-level fight against DMA-based wallhacks, aimbots and radar cheats that run from a second PC and bypass conventional software anti-cheat defenses.

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