Little Confusion on using PING...

[imatek]

Could someone maybe help clarify something about running a PING test. When someone calls me and tell me that they are experiencing slow connections on the Internet, I normally try to ping their IP address first and then tell them what could be the cause. Some people are saying that pinging my customer is not a reliable test, I should have my customer ping beyond their default gateway first and then I'll be to determine the problem. Is pinging my customer first not a reliable test especially of we're both on different subnets?

 

[franklin97355]

A ping will verify a connection but as a test of network stability it isn't very good because the packet size is small. there are programs that will test throughput by sending large packets that would be better.

 

[cdogg]

Ping will help show that a connection exists, but it's not always a reliable test for speed analysis. Instead, use tracert (traceroute). Have the customer execute this command just like you would for Ping:

tracert

http://www.yahoo.com

Of course, it makes sense to choose the site(s) the customer is experiencing slow connections with. Although it takes some time to complete, you'll receive a list of "hops" that indicate each router a packet travels through to reach the destination. From here, it is easy to see where the slowness is occurring since each router usually returns a ping. The path a packet travels depends on the ISP.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[chaosinc]

there is a prog out there called neotrace that is a nice little tool. it will do pings and tracert for you in a gui format instead of a dos box.
knoweldge is power, spread the power

 

[imatek]

I want to thank everyone for replying to my question.

 

[tempo21]

you can also use traceroute - a program that will give you a nice map of where your connection goes!

http://www.visualware.com/visualroute/

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