TTL Expired in transit

[Vmarria]

Hi guys got a quick question i'm kind of new to systems admin. and i keep getting this TTL expired in transit result whenever i try to ping a computer on the LAN. I'm not sure what the message means, can anyone fill me in as to what the error is and if it something i should be concenred about...its a lan with only about 60 or so PCs...

thank you

 

[benzito]

TTL stands for "Time to Live" and specifies the amount of time a ICMP echo request IP packet (PING) has before it times out. If you're receiving this message than the host is unreachable , @ least within the given TTL. It appears that your PINGs can't reach the other computer and are timing out.

 

[Vmarria]

But its odd because the TTL happans for a few short seconds enough to kick the person off the network but the connection is then restored...i can't figure out why it would do that so randomly...

 

[benzito]

Could be any number of things. Ruling out congestion (You only drop packets <ttl timing out> when pinging a certain host?) and any ICMP filtering, I'd begin by checking the physical connections on the pc in question. How does the computer you're pinging connect to the LAN? Via a hub / switch? Are you able to ping the other pc's connected to the hub / switch 100% percent? If so, I'd check the network cable attached to the pc, replace it with a known good one to rule it out. Could also be a flacky Network Interface Card that may need replacing or re-seating. Do you get the same results when pinging from the pc in question back the other way? Hope fully it's either a bad cable or card. Check those and let me know either way...