Ping check. How to check ping (ping) on ​​the command line Windows, Linux

27. 09.2018

Blog of Dmitry Vassiyarov.

How to check ping via command line?

Greetings my dear readers. Surely each of you was concerned about the quality of your network connection. In search of a solution to optimize it, you have to look for a weak link, which is often a high time for exchanging data packets. To check this parameter, it is useful to know how to check ping via the command line. I will talk about this in this article.

Let me briefly remind you what ping is. The process of connecting over a network between two points involves the exchange of data in both directions. Even if there is a one-way broadcast of the stream, the receiver sends various control information, information about its configuration and changes when working with the interface to the source.

So ping is the time during which packet data is exchanged. The smaller it is, the better. And if it is missing, then there is no network connection either.

Let's return to our task of determining ping. I recommend using the command line method, since it is classic and allows you to learn the necessary amount of information even if there are obvious problems in the operating system. It is briefly described in one of my blog articles dedicated to the concept of ping, and now is the opportunity to talk about it in more detail.

But we’ll start by calling the command line, which can be launched in the following ways:

• in Windows XP, press “Win+R” and enter “cmd”;
• in Windows 7 or 8, call the context menu (right mouse button) of the “Start” button and select “Command Prompt (Administrator);
• in Windows 10, use the same method to call “Power Shell (as administrator)”, an analogue of cmd;
• Well, just type in “Command line;” in the system’s search engine;

We will essentially use one command, which is called and written “ping”. But it adds a network object identifier and additional functions, which we will look at later.

First, let's check the ping when accessing the site, or rather its server. To do this, we need his Internet address, which we are used to entering in the browser. Therefore, the command will look, for example, like this:

"ping site".

We confirm “Enter” and get the result, the details of which I propose to understand. To get an objective assessment, your computer sends four requests (this is the standard format for this command), so in 4 similar lines you will see:

• IP address;
• number of bytes sent (usually 32);
• signal travel time in milliseconds (reception and transmission) - this is ping;
• TTL (Time to live) is the lifetime of the signal, but in fact, this is the number of hops between intermediate points, which can be your router, provider switch, routing server;

Ping data is averaged and presented as a final figure. You can experiment with different sites and compare the results. For established companies like Google, sites will provide the best ping, but for homemade sites located on a shared drive on one server, this indicator can be critically high.

If in both cases the results are equally unsatisfactory or absent altogether, problems in the network itself are obvious.

IP address – universal identifier for determining ping

When you request a web address, the information given to you will also indicate the IP of the object. You can also “ping” at this address by entering the following command:

"ping 5.45.116.213"

This method has many more possibilities, since you can check the quality of the connection with your home router. For example, for Tp-Link models it will look like this:

"ping 192.168.0.1" (or "ping tplinkwifi.net");

In this way, you can check the speed of data exchange with all devices on your home or office network. This could be a smart TV, a printer, an external media server, or another PC.

The ping check is especially relevant for gamers, because the degree of pleasure received from the gaming process largely depends on this parameter. Depending on the type of network, you will need the IP address of the game server or another PC if you are playing locally together.

Additional features of the “ping” function

Now I want to tell you some secrets. The fact is that the “ping” command can be used with various additional parameters, which are presented in the figure.

How to use them? Yes, very simple. For example, when using the command

“ping –t fishki.net”

The number of requests will be sent an unlimited number of times until you press “Ctrl+C”. You can also safely experiment with other pinning options without fear of doing something wrong.

That's probably all I wanted to tell you about checking ping via the command line. I hope the information was useful to you, expanded your horizons and convinced you that the good old command line is capable of outwitting many modern applications.

With this I say goodbye to you, my dear readers, and sincerely wish you all good luck.

Packet Internet Grouper (an acronym for the Ping command) is used to test the connection to a particular server or router. Typically this command is used to identify connection problems. The Ping command allows you to check the connection and draw conclusions about the need for troubleshooting. Then you will have to think about how to lower the ping and improve the “connection”. Checking the connection quality in Windows is not difficult. Now we will make sure of this.

How to use the command

The first step is to launch the Windows Command Prompt. It can be found in the Start menu, All Programs tab, Accessories sub-item. Ping Test runs only on the command line.

In order not to have to worry about searching for the command line throughout Start, you can select the “Run” item, enter the three letters “cmd” there, and press Enter. The Windows command prompt will immediately open.

The ping check is started with the “ping server name” key (for example, “mail.ru”). The ping command has a considerable number of additional switches, but this is not so important now. These keys allow you to run the “connection” checker with certain parameters for some extraordinary cases. To view help, enter “ping” in the line and press Enter.

In order to check the ping of a router or modem, you will need to enter the IP address of your router in cmd ping instead of the server name. For example, 192.168.1.1. The router address can be viewed in the network connection properties. If your TCP IP protocol uses automatic address configuration, then you can safely enter the “standard” 192.168.1.1. So, let's consider a situation where you need to check ping using the mail.ru server as an example. The “ping mail.ru” command will give us all the necessary information. The command line window will look something like this.

The current packet transmission rate is highlighted in red. The optimal transmission time is 32-34 ms. If the time is longer, then there is something wrong with the connection. We need to look for the cause and eliminate it. Cmd ping also allows you to check the quality of the “connection” between your computer and the router. To do this, enter the IP “192.168.1.1”. Attention, the router address may differ!

If your screen displays something similar to the screenshot above, then the ping check was completed successfully and no problems were found. If you see anything different from this, then there is something wrong with your connection. Most likely, this is a problem with the router or the computer’s network card. You'll have to look for information on how to lower your ping.

Additional Information

To find additional information on this issue, you can contact the consultants of our portal or use an Internet search. There is a lot of information on how to check ping. Instructional videos from YouTube.com can be very helpful.

The video below comprehensively explains how to use cmd ping.

And this video describes in even more detail the process of checking the connection using Windows 7 as an example.

With the tenth version of Windows, everything is somewhat different. There is no need to use the command line, since the system includes a powerful PowerShell terminal. With its help, all this can be done even faster and easier.

Conclusion

So, now it is clear that the ping program is a simple and powerful tool for testing the connection. How to use cmd ping was described a little higher. Well, nothing is said here about ways to eliminate the faults found, since that is a completely different story.

Many novice computer users have no idea what ping is. At the same time, knowledge of “ping” can greatly simplify the work of checking the performance of your network connection, the quality of the Internet connection or local network. Knowing how to “ping” is also important for avid gamers to find out how fast the connection is on your network, what IP the other gamer has, and how many players there are on the network.

What is ping and what is it for?

Ping (English: ping) is a period of time that passes between a request and a response to the server. Even simpler: ping is the time of request and subsequent response of data from your computer to another computer (information exchange speed). Ping is usually measured in milliseconds: 200 ms (0.2 seconds), 29 ms (0.026 seconds), 2000 ms (2.0 seconds).

Historically, the word ping in the last century was used to describe a sonar signal. This name arose due to the consonance between the sonar signal and the signals themselves. Currently, ping also searches for various objects, but not in the sea or ocean, but in a computer network.
According to another version, the word ping comes from the well-known game of ping pong. And indeed, as in a real game, so on the network, users “throw” packets of information to each other, transmit and receive signals.

Thus, ping is a parameter thanks to which the user himself checks whether the network is working, which user he is “connecting” with, as well as the very quality of the connection in the local and global networks.

Why is the ping low/high?

Of course, huge blocks of requests cannot be transmitted over the network at once. That is why they are divided into small packages. Also, the computer records the time it takes these packets to travel to their destination and also to return back. Thus, the quality of the connection in the network is checked.

Packets can be sent either to the provider’s server or “ping” individual computers, sites or portals. It happens that not all packages are returned. In this case, they are considered lost. The higher the number of packets that are lost, the worse the connection to the server. At the same time, if, despite the fact that the user sends packets, but there is no response, then the connection is considered interrupted and it is worth looking for the cause of the problem not in the connection, but in the computer itself.

What does ping depend on?

The user also needs to track the response time. If you wait too long for packets to return, you can talk about poor connection quality, and the problem itself can be either in the server or between the computer and the server.

In the case of a long signal delay, the ping is called high, and in the case of a fast signal transmission back to the user, it is called low. Thus, there is a high ping and a low ping, and the user himself can understand exactly why problems are occurring on his network. In general, the lower the ping, the faster you can receive messages, replies, and the faster the data exchange. Of course, the opposite option is also possible - a high ping, which is much worse than a low one. As a rule, the average ping is 100 – 120 ms. With a ping of 150 or more, it is quite difficult to play computer games, and with a ping of 1000 ms, working on the network becomes almost impossible.

How to check your ping? Find out your ping! Ping test

How to check your own ping and how to find it out? To check ping, use the command line. You can open it in various ways. For example, click on the “Start” button and enter the command “cmd” in the search bar, or press the key combination “Win ​​+ R”, and then enter the same command, and then “Enter”. In the open black window that appears, enter the “Ping” command, followed by the network address (IP address) or site. For example, you can write: “ping www.yandex.ru”. Then, on the keyboard, press the “Enter” key. Next, the computer will start sending requests to the corresponding site and display the result to us. All that remains is to compare the total number of packets that we sent with the number of received packets, and also look at the response speed. Next, the computer will show us the number of lost packets as a percentage. After studying all the data, you can determine how high-quality the connection to the network is.

Completely 4 packets of information arrive at the server, then general address statistics are displayed indicating: the total size of the information packet (32 bytes), response time (in milliseconds), and the total period of time (TTL) the computer waits for a response from the server. If the loss is 0 percent, then the connection is considered excellent. If a significant portion of packets are lost and the ping is high, this indicates that there are serious problems in some part of the network.

To check the connection to a specific provider, you should ping its DNS server. If you want to check your own router, you should use the “ping 192.168.1.1” command.

Commands for checking ping

There are several basic ping commands that novice users (users) need to know.
Pingtest— In order to find out whether the server is working and whether there are problems with setting up the DNS server, you need to enter the domain name and IP address into the ping command. To do this, open the command line (Start - run - cmd - ok), or run Start - programs - standard - command line.
After this we type the command:
Ping DOMAIN NAME (or IP)
For example, you need to ping the portal yandex.ru

The computer indicates the number of packets transmitted, the time of reception and transmission, as well as how many packets were sent and how many were received.

The following tracert command is a trace command (sets the path along which packets reach the specified host).

So, using this command, you can clarify how many servers your data passes through and where exactly the packets are lost. Keep in mind that the largest number of nodes that can be traced is 30. At the same time, the user sees the router address itself, as well as the response time in milliseconds.

Tracert DOMAIN NAME (or IP)
For example, you need to trace the route to the portal www.yandex.ru
You need to enter the command: tracert www.yandex.ru

Why does the ping fluctuate (change)?

It is quite difficult to determine why the ping is fluctuating. When playing computer games, the ping can jump from 4 to 170 - 200 ms. There can be quite a lot of reasons - this is a poor connection, torrents are turned on, low server bandwidth, the communication channel may be busy with something. The ping may jump due to the router being overloaded, and the game server may also be overloaded.

You can measure ping using Windows, using the website speedtest.ru, or via torrent, as well as by uploading videos to YouTube in safe mode with loading network drivers.

There are several ways to reduce ping.
The first and easiest thing is to change your Internet provider. Change the operator, replace the USB modem, purchase a more expensive tariff with a high connection speed. This is one of the most reliable ways to reduce ping.

Another way to reduce ping is to change the server you connect to. It is best if the server is located closer to your computer. If you play a computer game in Moscow, and your server is located in the same city, the ping will be much lower than if your server was located, for example, in St. Petersburg. In addition, it should be noted that the more intermediate routers there are for the connection, the higher the ping. To check how many routers are present when connecting to the server, you should type the Tracert command.

Sometimes updating drivers can help reduce ping.

Advice: In order for the ping to become lower, you should definitely clear your computer of viruses (if any) and disable the antivirus. Often, antivirus and other resource-intensive programs can consume a lot of resources and increase your ping.

Well, and finally, in order to reduce ping, you should disable all programs that consume traffic. That is, if you simultaneously download music, play the radio, or download movies from a torrent, of course, your ping will be very high.

How to lower ping in games (cs go, world of tanks, warface, etc.)

How to reduce ping in computer games? This is a particularly pressing issue for gamers who are keen on playing strategy games, shooting games and other computer games.

In order to reduce the ping of world of tanks, you should run the command: Start - run - regedit (or standard - command line), then you need to find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\.Next, you should go to the interface using the following method. Right-click in the right field, then create a DWORD line, rename it TcpAckFrequency. Then, right-clicking on it, select the “Change” command, put a hexadecimal checkbox and enter – 1. After that. You should restart your computer. With this method, the ping in the game becomes significantly lower.

Ping in Warface can be reduced in the following way. First, by optimizing the network in the Windows 7 registry. To do this, you need to open the “Regedit” program (Start - Find programs and files - Run. Then go to the folder at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters\). Next, in the “Parameters” folder you need to add 1 DWORD parameter “TCPNoDelay” with a hexadecimal number system, assigning the value 1. At the end, you should close all open windows and restart the computer.
You can reduce the ping in the game Ping cs go either using the special program FixPinger by launching it and entering the command execfixpinger.cfg in the console and pressing F1, or using the method below.

To do this, call the console “~”. Next, you need to enter the following parameters into it:
1.cl_updaterateXX– (total number of packets that are sent from the server to the player within 1 second). The value of XX in the command directly depends on the speed of the Internet connection you use.
At a speed of 28.8 kb/sec, you must set 10 instead of “XX”
If your speed is 33.6 kb/sec, then enter 15 packets
If the connection speed exceeds 48.8 kb/sec, you need to set the values ​​to 20 (or 25).
2.cl_cmdrate XX– represents the opposite command to the first (how many packets pass from the client to the server). Instead of XX we write a number that is 3 times the number of the first command. This will speed up the reception and transmission of packets.
3. fps_max XX– maximum number of FPS. These values ​​directly depend on the performance of the PC. Most often, users set the parameter to 100; if the hardware is weak, it is necessary to set the value to 60.
4. fps_modem XX– must be equal to the value from point 3.

These methods of reducing ping are common among professional computer gamers.

The concept of “ping” is well known to players who spend a lot of time in multiplayer, in other words, playing online. The lower the ping, the less time the computer spends transmitting information (data packets) to the remote server and receiving a response. High ping leads to lags, that is, the user sees the picture in the game not in real time, but with some delay. It is difficult to use a network with a high ping, especially when it comes to online games, so it is recommended to check the quality of the connection to the server and, if necessary, lower it.

Why check ping

If you feel like your Internet connection is slow, it's a good idea to check your ping. For example, this may be necessary in the following situations:

• The connection to the Internet is interrupted, for example, when loading a page in the browser;
• When watching a video on the Internet, it loads slowly;
• Pages in the browser and the content on them load slowly; for example, on social networks, photos take several seconds to open.

Please note: It is important not to confuse high ping with a slow Internet connection. If you use a slow Internet, even with the lowest ping possible, you may experience the symptoms listed above.

How to check ping via command line

The Windows operating system provides the ability for the user to check ping. To check ping via the command line, you need to do the following:

After executing one of the commands discussed above, the user will see in the command line information about the number of transmitted, received and lost packets, as well as the average, maximum and minimum time for transmitting one packet.

How to check ping with third-party applications

There are dozens of different apps and websites that allow you to check your ping. The most popular is the speedtest service, which can be launched both from computers and from any other devices simply through a browser.

On the main page of the service you will see a virtual map and the ability to choose which server you will connect to to check your ping and Internet connection speed. Select a server of the required distance and click on it, after which the scan will begin.

Based on the test results, the Internet connection speed will be displayed, as well as ping information.

How to reduce ping

Ping and Internet connection speeds are two indicators that are inextricably linked. Based on this, we can conclude that to reduce ping it is recommended to do one of the following:

1. Update the drivers for the network card or Wi-Fi receiver through which the connection is made;
2. Make sure that there are no viruses on the computer, for example, “bitcoin miners” that consume computer resources, including network resources;
3. Check if any files are downloading in the background. Most often, users forget to disable the torrent tracker by minimizing it in the control panel;
4. Check through the “Task Manager” which specific applications are currently loading the system and network. It is possible that the next Windows update is being downloaded to the computer, which is why the ping increases.

Before you take decisive action on your computer (or other device) to reduce ping, it is recommended to make sure that it is lower on other devices. To do this, you need to turn off your computer (or other device where the ping was previously checked) and check the ping, for example, on a mobile phone or tablet. If the results are the same, then the problem is related to the quality of the Internet connection.