pathping output - need detailed explanation

Hey guys,

I couldn't find any site that explains the output of pathping. I did find
some but they were very light. I also know that I should only be concerned
about the third column.

I have included here a result of pathping which can help you guys answer
what I am trying to seek. Please see the pathping output indicated by start
and end below.

Here are my questions:

1. The congestion between hop 8 and hop 9 is at 100%. It's because hop 9 is
unreachable. What does the symbol ---(3 dashes) mean in hops 9, 10, 11 and
12?
2. If congestion between hop 8 and 9 is 100%, how come, the congestion
between 9 and 10, 10 and 11, 11 and 12 are at 0% only?
3. In the real production environment, what value in percentage in network
congestion should I consider that it is starting to get bad? 10%? 20%? 30%?
or what?
4. And also, sometimes I see 98% on the congestion between 2 routers but the
next hop is showing as ---100/ 100 =100%. Am I correct that I should not
worry about 98% since router might just be dropping ICMP packets?
5. Are there any other symbols that I haven't seen yet in pathping?
Please share

Thanks guys,

Neil


-----start------
Tracing route to www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net [207.46.249.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 172.16.1.219
1 172.16.1.254
2 64.135.220.1
3 64.135.192.1
4 129.250.223.109
5 129.250.27.113
6 129.250.5.114
7 129.250.2.6
8 129.250.8.66
9 207.46.40.129
10 207.46.36.210
11 207.46.155.10
12 * * *
Computing statistics for 300 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 172.16.1.219
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 172.16.1.254
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 26ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 64.135.220.1
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 28ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 64.135.192.1
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 31ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 129.250.223.109
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 31ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 129.250.27.113
0/ 100 = 0% |
6 32ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 129.250.5.114
0/ 100 = 0% |
7 73ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 129.250.2.6
0/ 100 = 0% |
8 78ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 129.250.8.66
100/ 100 =100% |
9 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 207.46.40.129
0/ 100 = 0% |
10 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 207.46.36.210
0/ 100 = 0% |
11 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 207.46.155.10
0/ 100 = 0% |
12 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 0.0.0.0

Trace complete.

------end-----

1) The value cannot be calculated.

2) The loss rates displayed for the links (identified as | in the Address
column) indicate link congestion causing the loss of packets being forwarded
along the path. The loss rates displayed for routers (identified by their IP
addresses) indicate that the CPUs or local packet buffers of those routers
might be overloaded.

3) 10%

4) Yes.

5) No.