A ping test is all that’s required to check your internet connection and test your computer’s connectivity. You can determine if you have a connectivity problem by performing a ping test. This article will show you how to run a ping test with Windows 10 and how to interpret the results.
Note: This step-by-step guide will show you how to ping a Mac computer.
What is a Ping Test and how does it work?
The ping test measures latency and tells you how reliable your connection is. A low latency connection is essential for online gaming, loading pages quickly, video chat, and other activities.
A ping test is a test that your computer sends to a host, a domain, or other devices on your network. You will see how quickly your computer receives a “pong” response back within milliseconds. Your ping response time should be as fast as possible.
How to do a Ping Test with Windows 10
To perform a ping test on Windows 10, use the Windows Search Bar. Type CMD and then click Open. Type ping followed by a space. Then enter the IP address or domain you wish to test, and it.
- Start the Windows Search Bar. Click the magnifying glass icon at the bottom-left corner to open the Windows Search Bar.
- Next, type CMD in the search bar. Click Open. This will open the Command Prompt window, which has a black background and white text with a flashing cursor.
- Enter ping, followed by a space, and an IP address (or domain name). You could type “ping hellotech.com” or “ping192.168.1.1”. You can ping your router by following our guide.
- Now, hit and enter. Wait for the ping test results.
How to read your Ping Test results
You will see four different ping tests results when you run a Windows 10 ping test. Each test will give you the ping time (in milliseconds) and the number of packets received or lost. The average, maximum, and minimum ping response times will be displayed.
It could indicate a problem with your connection if one of your ping tests revealed that packets were lost, or that one ping response was taking longer than others.
To check your internet connection and perform a ping test, enter ” Ping 8.8.8.8“. This will show you whether there is an issue with your internet connection or just the connection to a site.
To see ping results continuously, add ” -t” to your command. To check if your connection to Google DNS servers is ever lost, you could enter ping 8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8 –t. To stop the test, hit the control + C keys simultaneously.
Common Ping Error Messages
These are the most frequent error messages that you’ll see if your Ping test returns failed results.
- Request timed in: This indicates that the ping test took more than the default limit, which is 4,000 milliseconds (4 seconds). This could be due to network congestion, a firewall that blocks specific traffic, or defective cables and ports.
- Unknown host – This error message indicates that the hostname requested is not recognized. Verify that the correct name has been entered and that your router is working properly. You can find our guide on how to reset your router if you have problems with your router.
- TTL expired while in transit. The TTL that you see after each test’s ping time refers to how many hops your packet can make before it is discarded. This error message indicates that your packet has exceeded the allowed number of hops.
- General failure This could mean that your computer doesn’t have the correct TCP/IP settings, or that your local area network adapter or drivers (e.g. your router or WiFi card) is not working properly.
- It is impossible to reach: This message indicates that there is no way to get to the destination. If the message states, “Reply From”, it means that there is no route to the destination. “Destination Host unreachable” means there was a routing issue at the remote router and not with the destination host. itself.
You might need to troubleshoot your network problems if you receive one of these errors messages. To see if the problem persists, you can try pinging other devices and domains. This will allow you to determine if the problem is related to your device or your network connection.
You now know how to run a ping test, and what to do with the results. Read our step-by-step guide to find out more about your internet speed.
