How to Ping

Ping is the most basic network diagnostic tool. It sends a small packet to a destination and waits for a reply. If the reply comes back, the destination is reachable. The time it takes (measured in milliseconds) is your latency — the round-trip time between your device and the target.

When your internet "feels slow," ping is the first thing to check. High latency means delays. Packet loss means unreliable connections. No response means something is completely broken between you and the target.

Ping on Every OS

Windows

# Open Command Prompt (Win+R, type cmd, Enter)

# Ping a website
ping google.com

# Ping continuously (Ctrl+C to stop)
ping -t google.com

# Ping with specific count
ping -n 10 google.com

# Ping your router
ping 192.168.1.1

Mac / Linux

# Open Terminal

# Ping a website (runs until Ctrl+C)
ping google.com

# Ping with specific count
ping -c 10 google.com

# Ping your router
ping 192.168.1.1

Note: On Windows, ping sends 4 packets by default and stops. On Mac/Linux, it runs continuously until you press Ctrl+C.

iPhone / Android

Neither has a built-in ping command. Use a free app like "Ping" (iOS) or "PingTools" (Android). Alternatively, you can use the browser-based tool at ping.eu, though this pings from their server, not your device.

Reading Ping Results

PING google.com (142.250.80.46): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 142.250.80.46: icmp_seq=0 ttl=118 time=12.3 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.80.46: icmp_seq=1 ttl=118 time=11.8 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.80.46: icmp_seq=2 ttl=118 time=13.1 ms
64 bytes from 142.250.80.46: icmp_seq=3 ttl=118 time=12.0 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 11.8/12.3/13.1/0.5 ms

Field	Meaning
`time=12.3 ms`	Round-trip latency — 12.3 milliseconds to reach the server and come back
`ttl=118`	Time to live — the packet passed through about 10 network hops (started at 128)
`icmp_seq=0`	Sequence number — helps identify if packets arrive out of order or are lost
`0% packet loss`	All 4 packets got a reply. This is what you want

What's Good, What's Bad?

Latency	Quality	Experience
1-20 ms	Excellent	Ideal for gaming, video calls, real-time apps
20-50 ms	Good	Perfectly fine for most things
50-100 ms	Acceptable	Noticeable in gaming, fine for browsing and streaming
100-200 ms	Poor	Voice calls start having awkward delays, gaming is laggy
200+ ms	Bad	Satellite internet territory. Everything feels delayed

Packet loss is more important than latency. Even 1-2% packet loss makes connections feel terrible — video calls freeze, games stutter, web pages partially load. 0% is normal. Anything above 0% indicates a problem somewhere in the network path.

Useful Ping Targets

Target	Tests
`ping 127.0.0.1`	Your own network stack. If this fails, your TCP/IP is broken
`ping your-router-ip`	Connection to your router. If this fails, WiFi or LAN is broken
`ping 8.8.8.8`	Google's DNS. If router ping works but this fails, the problem is between router and ISP
`ping google.com`	Full connectivity including DNS. If 8.8.8.8 works but this fails, it's a DNS issue

Work through these in order — it's a systematic way to isolate where the connection breaks.

Why Ping Fails

"Request timed out" — The target didn't respond within the timeout period. Either it's unreachable or a firewall is blocking ICMP packets
"Destination host unreachable" — Your local network can't find a route to the target. Check your network connection and default gateway
"Could not find host" — DNS couldn't resolve the domain name. Try ping 8.8.8.8 to test if the internet works without DNS
Some websites block ping — Many servers disable ICMP responses for security. A failed ping doesn't always mean the server is down. The website might load fine in a browser while refusing ping

Beyond Ping

Ping tells you if something is reachable and how fast. For more detail, use traceroute — it shows every network hop between you and the destination, so you can see exactly where the problem is (your network, your ISP, or the destination's network).