Is ping now useless as a diagnostic.

As the title really. With most routers giving low priority to pings how can one tell if packet loss is actually loss or just a router on the way just ignoring ping and doing something else? I found an application called tcping.exe which could be a good diagnostic replacement. Thoughts?

Ping is still very useful, just takes a little thinking to figure out the real from the fake

Most PCs will have a utility called traceroute or tracert. That will ping every box along the route. Nothing you can (usefully) do if a particular box is configured not to respond to pings.

low prority but doesnt make it useless.

generally something performing not at high utilisation and not faulty will respond to pings in a timely manner.

also what is worth thinking about is its icmp thats usually deprioritised not udp, so you can do udp or even tcp pings.

also I rarely see end points have bad ping responses when they working normally, its normally just some intermediate routers that respond slow.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 23-Feb-12 08:16:32)

also what is worth thinking about is its icmp thats usually deprioritised not udp, so you can do udp or even tcp pings

I think that's the OP's point. tcping.exe?

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 23-Feb-12 09:16:13)

The thing is, if you note that pings are rapid during an off peak period, but they then subsequently soar during a peak period they can help identify congestion. Particularly since busy routers start to drop icmp packets; it can indeed work to your advantage!

As in it is the pre-cursor to udp and tcp packet delays/drops