"Just reinstall Windows" is common advice for hardware bans. It is also only half true. A clean install changes some identifiers and leaves others completely untouched.
What a reinstall changes
Several identifiers are created by Windows itself, so a fresh install generates new ones. The machine GUID — stored in the registry and read by many anti-cheats — is regenerated. So are the hardware profile GUID, the installation's product ID, and other Windows-assigned values. If you also reformat a partition during setup, that partition's volume serial changes too.
What a reinstall does NOT change
This is the part the advice skips. Reinstalling Windows does not touch anything that lives below the operating system. The motherboard's SMBIOS UUID and BIOS serial are in firmware — a new Windows install never sees or rewrites them. MAC addresses belong to the network adapters. A storage drive's built-in firmware serial is on the drive itself. None of these care which Windows is installed on top.
Why that matters for bans
An anti-cheat that fingerprinted you using firmware identifiers will see the same fingerprint after a reinstall. That is why a clean install does not clear a hardware ban built on the SMBIOS UUID: you changed the software layer, but the ban was anchored below it.
When a reinstall is enough
If a game's ban relied only on software-level identifiers — the machine GUID, a volume serial — a reinstall plus a reformat can genuinely move it. The honest answer depends entirely on which identifiers that specific game used.
The takeaway
Reinstalling Windows resets the Windows-level identity and nothing deeper. It changes the machine GUID and can change volume serials; it never changes firmware IDs or MAC addresses. Whether that helps depends on which layer the ban was built on.