Valorant Won't Launch or Keeps Crashing? Fix Vanguard

Valorant runs on Riot Vanguard, a kernel-level anti-cheat that loads before the game. When it conflicts with your system, you get launch failures, black screens, or mid-match crashes. Work through these fixes in order — most issues are Vanguard or a background conflict, not the game itself.

Fix 1: Reinstall Riot Vanguard (the “sc delete” method)

If Valorant won’t launch or Vanguard “crashed,” a corrupted service entry is the usual cause. Open Command Prompt as administrator and run, one at a time:

sc delete vgc
sc delete vgk

Restart your PC. Launch Valorant from Riot Client and it reinstalls Vanguard automatically. If a leftover folder remains, delete C:\Program Files\Riot Vanguard manually, then reinstall. Confirm in services.msc that vgc is set to Automatic and starts without error. This single step resolves the majority of launch failures.

Fix 2: Black screen on launch

A frequent culprit is the Nahimic audio service conflicting with the game’s rendering pipeline. Open services.msc, find Nahimic, and set it to Disabled (or stop it), then relaunch. Also try Windowed or Borderless instead of exclusive fullscreen — a mismatched monitor refresh rate or cable can trigger intermittent black screens on certain driver combinations.

Fix 3: Kernel-Power crashes (event ID 41)

If Event Viewer shows Kernel-Power errors (your PC loses power or reboots mid-match), the cause is usually system-level, not the game. Two settings to check:

• Memory Integrity (Core Isolation) under Windows Security → Device Security. Vanguard is sensitive to it; toggling it off and rebooting resolves many random reboots.
• BIOS virtualization (Intel VT-x / AMD-V) and Secure Boot / TPM 2.0 — Valorant may require these enabled, and a mismatch after a Windows update triggers kernel-level failures.

Fix 4: Overlays and background tools

Discord overlay, NVIDIA ShadowPlay / GeForce Experience overlay, Xbox Game Bar, and MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner hook into the rendering pipeline and crash Vanguard. Disable them one at a time to isolate the conflict.

Fix 5: Drivers and overclocks

Update GPU drivers (or roll back if crashes started right after an update — use DDU in Safe Mode). Revert any CPU / GPU / RAM overclock including XMP / EXPO; unstable memory passes stress tests but fails Vanguard’s kernel checks. Reset in-game graphics to low / medium if VRAM is strained.

If nothing works

A clean reinstall of Valorant (after the Vanguard and system checks above) is the last step, not the first. Don’t skip the system-level fixes — they’re where the real cause lives.

Crashes during ranked cost you MMR and momentum; keep your system stable so you can focus on the ranked ladder. And before you blame hardware, make sure your sensitivity and crosshair are set so you’re not fighting your own settings.