For many, Ping is a word you add before Pong, but for people who use their computer to troubleshoot network related issues, Ping means something altogether different.

Ping was written in December, 1983 by Mike Muuss while working at the Ballistic Research Laboratory in Maryland, as a way to troubleshoot issues on a network. Ping was named after the sounds made by a submarine sonar, because of the functional similarity between the two. A submarine’s sonar pulses are echoed off of an object and then collected and deciphered, much like a Ping.

The Ping tool is very useful in testing the state of your network and It is a tool that you should be familiar with.

In the following tutorial, I will show you how to use the Ping tool to diagnose the state of your connection.

1. Click -> Start -> Run
2. Type CMD into the Run Box -> Hit Enter
3. The Command Prompt will Launch. You may see something different than what is in the picture, but it won’t affect the Ping test. Type the following -> ping google.com -> Hit Enter (Note: you can replace google.com with a website of your choice) Click The Image.
   
4. Click The Image To Learn How To Interpret The Results.
   

Although there’s a lot more to Ping than what I have outlined, the above information will start you on the right path.