What to check if 'pinging' doesn't work?

Solution 1:

Tracert (or traceroute) would seem to be the next reasonable step; find out where the traffic is being stopped. You could spend an awful lot of time troubleshooting something that isn't even part of the problem if you don't know that.

Solution 2:

There's quite a few things that can cause the system not to ping. I assume you mean that the server is not RESPONDING to ping?

In which case, where are you pinging it from? A local network (LAN), or from the internet?

If it won't respond to PING on a local network (ethernet, usually), then it could be a Firewall setting. I assume you are running Windows?

In Windows XP, you can disable/enable ICMP packets. When you PING it sends an ICMP packet, which some some firewalls will filter. If you are using the Windows firewall, it depends on the version of Windows you are running. If you are running a 3rd party firewall, you will need to check its settings.

The other obvious thing is to check to see if the server is plugged in, and that it has an IP address, you are pinging the correct IP address and that there are no communication breakdowns between the server you are pinging, and yourself.

To check the IP address of the server, go to Start > Run > CMD > ipconfig, and scroll through the IP addresses presented there and try each one, one by one.

If you are trying to ping it over the internet, then that's a much more complicated issue. It could be a firewall at the edge of your network (a consumer grade router maybe?), it could be the firewall again, or it could be a hundred other things.