Can ping plotter be used to monitor my WLAN? I am interested in long term trending of the link between my wireless computer and the access point. When I use a wireless computer, I don't see the first hop to my AP as I would expect.

Any other programs that can do what I want?

Thanks
Steve

Hi, Steve.

Not all devices are viewable with traceroute - in particular, things like wireless access points usually don't represent themselves as a routing device that's viewable via traceroute (and thus, PingPlotter). There are some alternatives, though. One way is to determine the IP Address of your wireless access point, and address it directly with another instance of PingPlotter, or using MultiPing. Another possibility is just to assume that all packet loss is due to the wireless link - very often the first hop that does report is a reliable device (ie: connected to the wireless access point by a single cable that is unlikely to be adding latency of packet loss).

If you're not seeing any hops between you and a destination that you know is a number of hops away, then you might be experiencing a bug in a router that's not passing through ICMP echo requests correctly. In this case, you often have to fix the problem device, by updating the bios or some similar mechanism.

Best wishes,
Pete