Cable Forum - View Single Post - Pinging non existing machines and getting response

brum_blue · 16-06-2010, 12:24

Hi, recently I have noticed an odd problem with my LAN.

I can ping any name, even machines that don't exist. eg "ping notexist".
This gives me a reply:

Pinging notexist.cable.virginmedia.net [81.200.64.50] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 81.200.64.50: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=108
etc

I would expect to get an "unknown host" when I ping an unknown machine, I'm sure that is what used to happen. I don't know why cable.virginmedia.net is getting involved.

I'm not sure if this is an ISP issue, a router or cable modem one, or some other lan issue. I'm using XP, but have windows 7 on the lan, which I was troubleshooting when I discovered this.

I suppose it is DNS related, but am not sure how to troubleshoot it.
thanks for any advice.

16-06-2010, 12:24	#1
brum_blue Inactive Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 3	Pinging non existing machines and getting response Hi, recently I have noticed an odd problem with my LAN. I can ping any name, even machines that don't exist. eg "ping notexist". This gives me a reply: Pinging notexist.cable.virginmedia.net [81.200.64.50] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 81.200.64.50: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=108 etc I would expect to get an "unknown host" when I ping an unknown machine, I'm sure that is what used to happen. I don't know why cable.virginmedia.net is getting involved. I'm not sure if this is an ISP issue, a router or cable modem one, or some other lan issue. I'm using XP, but have windows 7 on the lan, which I was troubleshooting when I discovered this. I suppose it is DNS related, but am not sure how to troubleshoot it. thanks for any advice.