How to ping a device
To ping an IP, device or website, follow the simple instructions below.
- Open the command prompt on your Windows PC by clicking on the START menu and then type CMD. A black window will open. This is the command prompt.
- Type Ping <IP address/hostname or website> (e.g Ping 192.168.1.1 or Ping PRINTER100 or Ping google.com)
PING to an IP address that responds
This Ping example shows a ping to the IP address 192.168.1.1 and it is successful because you can see an echo reply from the destination IP.
By default, 4 ping packets are sent and there is a line showing the result of each ping.
Ping a website that responds
This example shows a Ping to google.com.
When you ping the name of a host or website, the first thing your PC does is ask a DNS server what the IP address for the destination host or website is.
The DNS server will tell it the IP address it needs to send its ping packets.
It then sends the Ping packet to the IP address because that’s how computers speak.
This is similar to how when you want to send an email or letter to someone you need to know their email address or home address so you know where to send it to.
Ping an IP and No Response – Time out
The example below shows a Ping to 192.168.0.99 which has failed because the device (192.168.0.99) has not replied.
This ping has resulted in all four packets timing out and therefore we see 100% packet loss.