How to check your ping with Riot without playing a game (Windows)

(please read disclaimer at bottom) Checking your internet speed with Speedtest.net isn't enough; that just checks your personal connection to a nearby server to find maximum performance. What you want to get is the connection from you all the way to Riot.

The way to do this is simple by pinging their servers.

What you want to do is open your Command Prompt; this can be done by typing cmd and hitting Enter in the Run/Search bar found in the Start menu.

Then simply type ping 216.52.241.254 and press Enter. Your computer will then send 4 small packets to the server and time how long it takes to get them back (internet radar!). It will display the time for the pings in milliseconds (ms) next to each one, and the last line will show the minimum, maximum, and average of them all. http://i.gyazo.com/4d7c5682f45deb1818553eab048346b8.png

If you want to do more than 4 pings, you can make it ping 216.52.241.254 -t. With the -t it won't stop until you press ctrl + c.

Want to test your connection often, without the hassle of opening Command Prompt, finding the server address, and typing it in? You don't have to! You can create what's called a batch file; opening these performs multiple actions for you, which includes opening Command Prompt and starting a ping test.

To create a batch file, you just create a Wordpad document, enter the info you want it to execute (save and close), then change the file type to .bat instead of .txt. The info will be slightly different so that it can open Command Prompt and not close it on you immediately after finishing the ping. Below is the most simplistic way (and you can add -t); http://i.gyazo.com/4e44a1b26d41fee5311ca8b8e8e75895.png

If you're unsure how to change the file type, just open up any folder, press alt, click Tools then Folder Options, go to the View tab, and uncheck Hide Extensions for Known File Types. This will show your Wordpad file type as "txt", so you can just change that by renaming it to "bat". http://i.gyazo.com/dd080ded16294f9be8250009abefebb7.png

Disclaimer: The address I'm showing is not the only one. Riot uses many servers, and the one you are connected to may vary. This one is also just for NA servers, though you can ping any region if you have the address. What I'd like from the community is more server addresses to list. There used to be a Support page with them, but the old links are broken.

Criticism for improvements or corrections I can make to this is greatly appreciated. Criticism that is not constructive for helping players test their ping isn't.