|
     
|
|
Why use PING?Every now and then, you might experience problems when trying to navigate around the web. Such problems will be
most frequent for the 56kers out there. A 56k dialup connection is just slow... and that's all I have to say about that.
Of course, you're going to get better performance out of DSL, Cable, Satellite or some other form of high-speed
Internet access. However, no matter how you go about connecting to the Internet, there are going to be those times
when you simply can't get a certain file to download no matter how many times you try. Or perhaps you haven't been
able to get to a certain web page all afternoon. These headaches are pretty much par for the course, and the cause
of such problems can be somewhat elusive at times. Pinging a few addresses is one way to narrow things down a bit.So, what is PING?
Good question. PING is a measure of network latency. There ya have it. Now, if you have a life, it is quite likely that
you have no idea what network latency means... nor do you care. To those people, I say good for you! Go ahead and
surf to another page. Who the heck cares about this geeky stuff anyway?(long pause)
What? There are still a few of you left? Well guess what... you're the cool ones, and those other guys were all dorks!
Now for some tech-talk. PING measures how long it takes for a 32bit packet of info to leave your machine, bounce off
a remote host, and then come back. If words like "radar" or "sonar" are coming to mind, that's actually a great way to
picture it. Now there are two reasons for high latency (slow response time). One is low bandwidth, and the other might
be an overtaxed server. Low bandwidth means you currently have a poor connection for whatever reason. A 56k dialup
user is already hurting for bandwidth, even under the most perfect conditions. Add static, cross-talk, and various other
forms of interference into the mix, and it suddenly becomes very difficult to send or receive data. Dialup users tend to
have the most trouble between 6pm and 10pm, because the phone lines are most heavily congested with voice/data
traffic during this time frame. An overtaxed server is pretty self explanatory. The host you're trying to reach is probably
receiving a particularly large amount of download requests from users like yourself.So how do I do it?
This is done from your command prompt. Win95/98 users, click on Start, move up to Programs, then click on your
MS_DOS Prompt. WinME/2000/XP users, click on Start, move up to Programs, slide over to Accessories, then
click on Command Prompt. Now just ping any given address...ping www.yahoo.com
The response should look similar to the following...
Pinging www.yahoo.akadns.net [66.218.71.80] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.218.71.80: bytes=32 time=126ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.218.71.80: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.218.71.80: bytes=32 time=119ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.218.71.80: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=47Ping statistics for 66.218.71.80:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 119ms, Maximum = 126ms, Average = 121msYou might be experiencing line issues or problems with the communications protocol on your machine if you're
getting slow response time, or no response at all, from any given host address. If the problem is with only one
host in particular, then there's a good chance that server is currently under attack, experiencing a heavy traffic
load, or a router somewhere in between point A and point B is either down or routing traffic rather sluggishly. If
In either case, feel free to contact your ISP's technical support department. More often than not, the root of any
Internet connectivity issues will be local to the machine you're trying to connect with, and your ISP's technical
support team will most likely be able to find a solution for you.