Home » Tips & Tricks: PC

How To Check If A Website Is Down In DOS

Posted By: BioTecK on Tuesday 7 October 2008 with 16 Comments

There are times when you want to visit a website just to notice that the website is down, or doesn’t even load. If this concerns your own website then you are probably panicking! :wink: You start asking your self: Is it just me or is my website really down?!

I have been in this situation myself a lot of times, but there’s something you can do before starting to panic; Ping the website to see if it’s REALLY down. In a lot of cases there’s nothing wrong with your website and the problem is just your computer!

You can use the PING function in DOS to determine whether a specific IP address/website is accessible. How it works?? It works by sending a packet to the specified address and waiting for a reply.

You can ping a website by following the steps below;

  1. Go to Start – Run
  2. Type cmd
  3. In the DOS screen type “ping” followed by the domain name which you want to check and hit Enter.
    For example: ping www.BioTecK.net.
  4. Now the website will be pinged. In the most cases you’ll see the next message, as shown as in the screen shot below, in your DOS screen.

So if the website doesn’t reply then the website is probably down! :wink:
If pinging works just fine and you still can’t access your website get those, the best things you can do, is to reboot your computer and verify the website again. In almost every case I could access the website after a reboot! :wink:

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16 Comments so far, be the next one! »

  • Lyndi said:
    7 October 2008 at 07:51

    Just recently one of the regular readers on my blog taught me how to ping in the way you described here. I needed to do this to determine my actual IP address. I never realized that this same test actually tells you if the site is running or not. Thanks for this info, now I have an additional tool in my arsenal.

    Lyndi´s last blog post..Lost WordPress admin password

  • shaxx said:
    7 October 2008 at 17:40

    I was taught by my hosting company to do that last month! It’s the easiest way to check! Cheers!

    shaxx´s last blog post..Going Down

  • Gem said:
    8 October 2008 at 09:06

    Been doing this for many years and loved this one. I’ve used this to check my own domain, or even when I want to verify if my net connection is still up. =)

  • che of teak furniture said:
    8 October 2008 at 12:12

    This is a great tutorial. The next time my site is down, I will know what to do.

  • Charles said:
    10 October 2008 at 15:54

    That’s cool but I can’t access dos at work.. any other idea’s? :roll:

  • BioTecK (author) said:
    11 October 2008 at 15:35

    No problem Lyndi. This is a good way to test your internet connection too.. :wink:

    Your right Shaxx!

    Yep, Gem, Just like you, I’ve used this method to see if my internet connection is up in the past and this is the easiest way to check that!

    I’m glad you liked it Che Of Teak Furniture! :D

    Hmm.. I don’t know.. Let me check it for you Charles.. :wink:

  • rv dealer said:
    15 October 2008 at 16:32

    it is really easy to check that way

  • Rehab Hottie said:
    15 October 2008 at 17:30

    I never knew how to actually do it. My tech division tried to explain it but I always got lost. Thanks for making it really easy.

  • Rehab Hottie said:
    15 October 2008 at 17:30

    I have tried repeatedly to figure this out. Thanks!

  • BioTecK (author) said:
    17 October 2008 at 06:54

    Indeed RV Dealer!

    Hehe! So I guess I can explain things better than your tech division Rehab Hottie! Thanks for the compliment! :D

  • DJYano said:
    19 October 2008 at 13:55

    Cool tricks, i don’t know that. Good job

  • BioTecK (author) said:
    19 October 2008 at 16:16

    Thnx DJYano! I’m glad you liked it!! :D

  • epic wealth systems said:
    12 November 2008 at 01:33

    epic wealth systems…

    Coffee IV, Stat!…

  • Junk Here said:
    5 December 2008 at 08:24

    Thats a great trick, IF the site isn’t blocking ping requests. Check out msn.com I bet it loads and doesn’t ping. Weird right? WRONG this ping attempt doesn’t always work. This is NOT accurate information. Its more of a warm fuzzy feeling.

  • BioTecK (author) said:
    6 December 2008 at 19:56

    Your right.. MSN.com doesn’t accept pings but most websites doesn’t have that tight security Junk Here. :)

  • John said:
    8 October 2009 at 17:09

    Or you can use http://www.checksite.us to see if it’s down. It can even notify you when a site comes back up.