I am pinging a Windows 8.1 PC that is currently shut down and I'm getting alternating results "Request timed out." and "Destination host unreachable."
What could cause this kind of behavior?
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I don't know that the details are publicly documented anywhere, but in Windows Vista Microsoft altered the TCP/IP stack to generate "Destination host unreachable" messages when ARP doesn't complete. Windows XP and prior versions of Windows didn't have this behavior.
(I'd love it if somebody would come along here and give a better answer that includes a link to some documentation at Microsoft explaining the rationale for this change!)
Evan Anderson
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IMO, the Windows Vista and later behavior is the correct behavior. If no ARP response is returned I don't want to see `Request timed out` as that falsely implies that layer 2 is up and functional. The new behavior goes a long way (yet very simply) in allowing you to differentiate between layer 2 and layer 3 problems. – joeqwerty Oct 10 '14 at 00:13
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Are you pinging a PC on the local network? If you are on the same subnet as the remote device and there is no arp entry, the first 'timed out' is because your PC is trying to arp for the remote device and gets no answer, the next 3 are because of caching the lack of arp entry.
cpt_fink
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Yes. What would cause one machine to behave this way and others not? – Chris76786777 Oct 11 '14 at 00:37
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Different operating system or configuration? Without details it's hard to guess. – cpt_fink Oct 13 '14 at 04:10
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All the same: Win 8.1. In general might this point to a device issue or something on the network? – Chris76786777 Oct 13 '14 at 16:21