ping
Test basic ICMP reachability and round-trip timing.
ping example.com
ping -n 20 192.168.1.1- Purpose
- Compares local gateway, public IP, and hostname responses to help separate link, routing, DNS, latency, and packet-loss symptoms.
- Administrator
- No — standard echo tests are read-only.
- Risk
- Low. Repeated or continuous tests still create network traffic and should respect managed-network policy.
- Windows support
- Windows 11 and Windows 10
When to use it
- Comparing local gateway loss with internet loss
- Checking whether a hostname resolves before packets are sent
- Sampling an intermittent connection over several requests
When not to use it
- Declaring a website or service down solely because it does not answer ICMP
- Measuring download throughput or application quality by itself
Steps
- Use ipconfig to identify the actual default gateway; replace the example private address with it.
- Ping the gateway, then a known public IP, then a hostname.
- Compare resolution, replies, loss, and timing rather than treating one timeout as conclusive.
Expected result
Each run shows the resolved address, individual replies or timeouts, and a summary of packets sent, received, lost, and round-trip timing.
Limitations
- Firewalls and hosts may intentionally ignore ICMP while other services work.
- A short test can miss intermittent loss, and low latency does not demonstrate available bandwidth.