From: "Geo." 

To do this drop to a command prompt and type:

ping x.x.x.x -l 2500 -t

where x.x.x.x is the IP address or name of your mail server (mail.yourdomain.com)

you should see replies, if you see an error of some sort it means the
packet didn't make the round trip. Normal pings are 16 or 32 bytes long and
are good for checking how fast the network is, increasing the size to 2500
bytes causes the ping packet to get fragmented like data packets (usually
around 1500 bytes) and should give some idea of the integrity instead of
the speed.

the -t parameter just makes it keep pinging until you hit ctrl-c to end it.

Mail (pop and smtp) seem to be more susceptable to lost packets than other
protocols for some reason.

Geo.

"David N. Barnett"  wrote in message
news:9f1dtucmiuk54aeluhi4ah2do6qghcioq5{at}4ax.com...
> On Sat, 16 Nov 2002 10:42:25 -0500, "Geo."
 wrote in
> message :
>
> | Run a Ping x.x.x.x -l 2500 from your dsl router to the mail server and
see if you
> | get any lost packets.
>
> What does that mean, and how would I do it?
>
> Hmm, I forgot about my router.  I didn't try bypassing the router and
> connecting straight to the DSL modem.
>
> The problem has not recurred.
>
> --dnb
>

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-4