I am not a Valve employee, I had no say on the creation of the system, and I am not saying that this system is flawless or perfect. I made this guide simply to give those less informed all the information on the cooldown system so that they are able to avoid receiving cooldowns.

There are several types of cooldowns and bans for the game Counter Strike: Global Offensive OTHER than competitive cooldowns. Here is a list of them and what they mean:

• Unrankd Cooldown: In a recent effort to slow down and deter cheaters, Valve has implemented a wins-per-day restriction for unranked players. While unranked, you are limited to 2 wins per day until you receive your rank. I have heard that ties count as wins when the system calculates your rank, but I can't confirm this.
  
• Overwatch: Minorly Disruptive: This is a cooldown for those convicted of being minorly disruptive by Overwatch. Minorly disruptive means that the player was griefing (intentionally ruining the game for the other players).
  
• Overwatch: Majorly Disruptive: This is a permanent ban for those convicted of cheating by Overwatch. These ARE NOT VAC bans, but it is common for a VAC ban to follow an Overwatch ban as the cheat used gets detected.
  
• VAC Ban: VAC stands for Valve Anti-Cheat. VAC bans are permanet and are triggered by the VAC system detecting cheats on your computer while playing on a VAC protected server.
  
• Account Untrusted Ban: No one outside of Valve knows for sure exactly what triggers these bans. However, according to Valve themselve's, account untrusted bans are 100% correct and will eventually become a VAC ban. These types of bans do not appear on your profile until they become VAC bans.

In CS GO there are four tiers for ban levels.

1. 30 Minutes (Level 1)
   
2. 2 Hours (Level 2)
   
3. 24 Hours (Level 3)
   
4. 7 Days (Level 4+)

To clarify, the level is after you have received the cooldown of that amount. So, you are at a level 1 after you received a 30 minute cooldown.

After the fourth cooldown all subsequent cooldowns, unless your ban level is lowered, will be another 7 day cooldown. REMEMBER THE COOLDOWNS STACK. If you have gotten three 7 day cooldowns in a row you are at a level 6 cooldown. Until you get down to level 2, you will always get another 7 day cooldown should you committ another offense, making your cooldown level go up by one.

Remember, the system will NEVER skip a cooldown tier. It will never give you a 7 day cooldown for your first offense.

In addition, as your level goes up, the system becomes more strict. At level 0, where an offense would get you a 30 minute cooldown, you are allowed to vote kick and be vote kicked a few times. However, at level 3 and up, simply being vote kicked once or vote kicking once will get you a cooldown of 7 days. This is as strict as the system gets.

There are several things that will trigger a cooldown. There are some though that aren't listed in the offical pages.

• Abandoning Game: At the start of a competitive match, you agree that you must play the full match or you will be punished. Abandoning the match will net you a cooldown regardless of what level you are at.
  
• Being Vote Kicked too Many Times: A measure against those who do get vote kicked frequently. There usually is a reason for this such as griefing, thus someone who gets vote kicked often usually isn't playing by the rules. However, people do abuse the system, which is where the next trigger comes in.
  
• Vote Kicking too Many Teammates: In order to prevent people from abusing the vote kick system, this cooldown trigger is in place. I will discuss when it's appropriate to use the vote kick system later in this guide. Remember, you DO NOT have to start the vote in order to get the cooldown. If you vote YES, it will count against you.
  
• Team Damage and Team Killing: There are specific things that need to happen for you to get a trigger for this reason: killing 3 teammates, doing 300 points of damage to teammates, or killing 1 teammate at spawn. Do any of these and you will be auto kicked from the match.
  
• Disconnecting: If you disconnect from the server you have 3 minutes to reconnect in order to prevent getting a cooldown. HOWEVER, you do have longer than 3 minutes to reconnect to the server (most say it's 5 minutes). After the 3 minute mark though, you WILL receive a cooldown even if you do reconnect to the server and play until the end.
  
• AFKing: The server considers a player as AFK if the player has made no actions in a certain amount of time. After this time you will be auto kicked from the server, but you will have a chance to reconnect as you would if you had disconnected (see above).
  
• Excessive Suicides: Killing yourself 5 times in a match will get you a cooldown. This applies to warm-up as well, but your suicide counter gets reset once the warm-up ends. In casual game modes 5 suicides will get you booted from the game, but obviously not trigger a cooldown. The reason for this trigger is because, if you are killing yourself a lot, you're obviously deranking or griefing.
  
• File Errors: Sometimes the files on your computer become corrupted or incorrect. If the server detect discrepancies between your files and the server's files, you will be kicked from the game. However, this WILL NOT result in a VAC ban, as the developers know that sometimes files get corrupted and it is not the fault of the player.
  
• Your Computer is Blocking VAC: Something on your computer or its settings may block VAC, which will cause you to be kicked from VAC secured servers. Like with file errors, this WILL NOT cause a VAC ban.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Whenever you get a cooldown, the number of times you have been vote kicked and the number of times you have vote kicked a team mate resets. Even if you have not vote kicked anyone in months and are at a level 4 cooldown, vote kicking or being vote kicked ONCE will trigger a cooldown.

Keep in mind this is what the system sees you do. The system is not a person who watches every game and thus can not know the exact reason for why you committed an offense.

There are very few instances when you should vote kick a player. You must keep in mind that the system is not here just so you can get rid of bad players. You have no right in saying who does and who doesn't get to play this game.

Here are some reasons where a vote kick could be considered justified:

• A player is griefing in a way that does not cause team damage such as blocking players, purposefully getting killed, losing rounds, or throwing the bomb in areas that can not be reached. If you can deal with griefers, try and do so and report them to Overwatch, where they will receive a minorly disruptive ban. Vote kicking MAY cause the case to not go to Overwatch, but I can not confirm that.
  
• A player is not playing, but has used console commands so they are still moving in game. This prevents the auto kick by the server but they are still obviously not there. Again, try and deal with a player like this and report them for griefing.
  
• A player is cheating (AKA hacking). This is a bit iffy as kicking a cheater does redue the chances, all though very slightly, of them being convicted by Overwatch. If you do let them play through the game, or they are with a friend that prevents a vote kick, the only thing you can do is report them. When they are caught their affects to your rank will be nulified.
  
• A player is playing but really isn't trying. It is VERY important to know the difference between a bad player, and one who isn't trying. A person might just be having an off game or day and aren't playing at their best. However, it is clear they are attempting to be a team player and are trying to win. A player who isn't trying is not doing that. They wander aimlessly around the map, get drunk or high, or go AFK for periods too short to trigger the auto kick.

In order for you to move up a cooldown level, you have to committ another offense in under 7 full 24 hour days since the previous cooldown expired. To lower your cooldown level you must go 7 full 24 hour days with no infractions.

In order to help clarify this, here's an example:

Lets say you have gotten your first 24 hour cooldown (meaning your previous cooldown was 24 hours). This means you are at a level 3 cooldown. AFTER the 24 hours are up and you are allowed to play again, you must go 7 days without getting a cooldown for your level to go down by one, putting you at a level 2 cooldown. HOWEVER, another offense at level 2 will result in another 24 hour ban. In order to get your cooldown level low enough for you to get a 30 minute cooldown should you committ an offense, you must go another 14 days without any infractions. This will bring you back to a cooldown level of 0.

KEEPING YOUR COOLDOWN LEVEL LOW IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!!! In a perfect world the servers would always work, internet connections would be stable, electricity is uninterupted, and people would not be jerks and actually kick you for not clutching. But we live in the real world where all these things happen. Keeping your cooldown level at a 0 or 1 means that, should you be unlucky enough to end up on a bad server, your internet cuts out, your power goes out, or you get teamed up with a bunch of jerks, you will only have to wait 30 minutes or 2 hours to play again.

If you take the proper steps it will be easy for you to avoid getting a cooldown. I will list ways to avoid getting cooldowns for each of the different triggers.

ABANDONING GAME/GOING AFK

• Don't leave the game just because you are losing, aren't doing well yourself, or getting lag. Keep in mind though that you can close the game and even restart your computer if you get a glitch or bug and reconnect without getting a cooldown IF you do it in 3 minutes or less.
  
• Make sure you will be distraction free and that you have enough time to play a game that might take all 30 rounds. If you know that in an hour you are going to have to leave, don't get into a competitive match, as they could be as long as 90 minutes.
  
• Go to the bathroom and get your drink or snacks before warm up ends. Also don't forget to take your dog out so they don't bother you mid game.

BEING VOTE KICKED TOO MANY TIMES

• Some people just want to watch the world burn. They will make a 4 man team just to kick the 5th unlucky solo player that gets paired with them. The best way to avoid being vote kicked is to team up with at least one friend.
  
• Never ask to be vote kicked if you have to leave, are doing badly, or you're getting lag. Doing so puts your team mates at risk for getting a cooldown as well as yourself. Either leave and take the punishment or tough it out.

VOTE KICKING TOO MANY TEAMMATES

• Don't kick someone just because they asked. Let them abandon the game and get the penalty.
  
• Dont' kick players who team damage/team kill.
  
• Don't kick players who are AFK and not moving
  
• Don't kick players just because they are bad
  
• Don't kick players because they wont vote to surrender.

TEAM DAMAGE/TEAM KILLING

• Be aware of where your teammates are. If they are near you can see pretty much exactly where thye are on the mini-map. One example would be on T side of Dust 2, if you are AWPing down mid, hug the railing. That way the only way a team mate can get in front of you is if they jump down to suicide.
  
• While at spawn, do not randomly click the primary or secondary (Mouse1 and Mouse2) while you wait to be unfrozen. If a team mate is close and you have a one shot kill weapon you might hit them and get yourself kicked.
  
• Try not to swing your knife while running away from spawn at round start.
  
• If you have trolls on your team who are always blocking your shots, there are a few things you can do. One is to simply not shoot. Another would be to rush the enemy and let them kill you, making the round go by faster (odds are the trolls aren't going to stop so finishing the game ASAP is preferable). Finally, if you're feeling lucky, you can attempt to use them as human shields. If they are going to keep jumping in front of you, might as well use them to soak up some bulles coming from the enemy.
  
• Be careful when throwing HE or fire grenades. If a team mate gets hit by it you could kill them.
  
• If you have trolls who will purposefully run into your HE and fire grenades, just don't use them that game. Or make sure to bring a smoke grenade with your fire grenade and extinguish it before they can damage themselves too much.

EXCESSIVE SUICIDES

• Don't kill yourself.

DISCONNECTING

• Test your connection before going into a competitive game. It's a good idea to warm up anyway, so hop on a casual Valve server and see how your ping is. Play for a while to see if you get lag. If your internet is bad, DO NOT PLAY COMPETITIVE.
  
• Make sure your computer is updated and is stable before playing. Also, it may not be a bad idea to disable automatic updates for your PC so that should you disconnect, you won't have to sit through a potentially lengthy OS update and miss your window to reconnect. If your computer can not run reliably, DO NOT PLAY COMPETITIVE.
  
• If you know your power is shoddy and goes out frequently, DO NOT PLAY COMPETITIVE.

FILE ERRORS/COMPUTER BLOCKING VAC

• Verify the integrity of your file cache.
  
• Reinstall Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
  
• Check your security settings on your computer (only applies to issues with VAC).
  
• Check and make sure your drivers are up-to-date.
  
• Make sure your hardware is not damaged.
  
• If all else fails, contact Steam Support and submit a ticket. Be sure to include any error codes you receive and relevant screen shots. Remember to be polite and as clear as possible (no net speak or short hand). And remember to be patient. Because of the shear volume of tickets submitted to Steam Support it is often that you will not receive a non-automated resposnse within a week. If it takes longer than two weeks, submit another ticket with everything that you submitted in the first ticket and explain that you had not received a reply to your first ticket in two weeks. Again, be respectful.

Hopefully this guide helped you better understand the cooldown system. Keep in mind that things that are not 'your fault' will still get you a cooldown. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or if I missed something.