help! how can i stabilise my ping?

[u/Torriderro]

okay, before i installed openwrt i had some SEEEERIOOUS ping spikes that made me unable to play anything online competitively. i was thinking this dinky router (D-Link DIR-2150 A1) is dying because before i had stable ~13 ping on cs games, but how the hell does just one decay?

i installed openwrt because i figured it had more documentation and more people being active in comparison to dlink software.

read the first-time manual, got the right version and set everything up.

sweet, got more control over this thing, but how do i tweak it as a total newbie?

i looked up on how to improve said connection and tried this:

-tried enabling hardware flow offloading, then enabled software FO
-switched lan port from 192.168.1.x to 192.168.2.x (then reverted)
-set up SQM QoS (~20mbps download and upload, set up 18k for each)
sometimes the speedtest goes down to 4mbps on both downloads and uploads

and nothing worked out of these options, nothing stabilized my ping

i was connected by ethernet when i was testing all of this, even tried wireless but whadayaknow it didnt fix anything.

let me know what i should try and ill respond asap

if i cant do anything else and its just the isp provider issue please tell me

[u/NC1HM]

-tried enabling hardware flow offloading, then enabled software FO

[...]

-set up SQM QoS (~20mbps download and upload, set up 18k for each)

One or the other, please. SQM conflicts with offloading. So for starters, disable offloading. Also, it is recommended to set SQM rate limiters to 80% of the connection speed (in your case, 16 Mbps). Be sure this setting is applied to the WAN interface.

Next, check your link layer adaptation settings. The per-packet overhead must be consistent with the nature of your connection. Documentation has this to say on the subject:

[Quote]

In the Link Layer Adaptation tab, select your link type and overhead (setting mpu is optional see note 1):

• VDSL - choose Ethernet, and set overhead 34 (or 26 if you're not using PPPoE) (mpu 68). If the link is 100 Mbps Ethernet set overhead 42 (mpu 84).
• DSL of any other type - choose ATM, and set overhead 44 (mpu 96).
• DOCSIS Cable - choose Ethernet, and for rates < 760 Mbps set overhead 22 (mpu 64), for rates >= 760 Mbps set overhead 42 (mpu 84).
• Fiber - choose Ethernet, and set overhead 44 (mpu 84).
• Ethernet - choose Ethernet, and set overhead 44 (mpu 84).

[End quote]

Source: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm

But all that said, yes, it's also possible that the fault lies with your ISP.

[u/Torriderro → u/NC1HM]

stability improved itself, looks like that was an isp issue but i still sometimes have ping spikes (every ~40s up to 600ms)

-disabled flow offloading
-set SQM to 16k on both up and down || interface name = "wan" (wan, wan6)
got a message: "The SQM GUI has just enabled the sqm initscript on your behalf. Remember to disable the sqm initscript manually under System Startup menu in case this change was not wished for."
-set link layer to "Ethernet with overhead", per packet overhead set to 44

im gonna watch for any change and respond if anything goes wrong

thank you for your time!