Reducing the collision domain size can be the result of installing network devices (usually switches and/or network bridges) that use microsegmentation.

Unlike network hubs and regular repeaters that usually broadcast every single packet, LAN switches are able to filter and forward packets by their MAC address (Media Access Control). The switch basically reads the 48-bit MAC address from the network card and is able to filter or stop frames inside the LAN or a certain network domain....

The following steps elaborate how to use the Ping utility to perform progressively more distant tests on your network connectivity.

Ping the loopback address – type ping 127.0.0.1
Successfully pinging the loopback address verifies that TCP/IP is both installed and configured correctly on the local client. If your loopback test fails, then it means IP stack is not answering. If any TCP drivers get corrupted, or if your network adapter is not functioning properly, or if any of the other service is interrupting IP , then lack of response might can occur. Open event viewer, and look for problems reported by setup or by the TCP/IP service....

A computer network can be segmented physically but also logically. A collision domain is one of the logical network segments in which the data packets can collide to each other. One of the most common protocols used when referring to a collision domain is the Ethernet protocol. Collision domains are often referred as ‘Ethernet segments’.

The term of ‘collision domain’ is also used when describing the circumstances in which a single network device sends packets throughout a network segment and forces every other device in that network segment to pay attention to those packets....

IP addresses were originally organized into classes. The address class determined the potential size of the network.

The class of an address specified which of the bits were used to identify the network, the network ID, or which bits were used to identify the host ID, host computer. It also defined the total number of hosts subnets per network. There were five classes of IP addresses: classes A through E....

127.0.0.1 is the standard IP address used for a loopback network connection.

This means that if you try to connect to 127.0.0.1, you are immediately looped back to your own machine....

IP (Internet Protocol) is the primary network protocol used on the Internet, developed in the 1970s. Every device connected to the public Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods (also called a ‘dotted-quad’) and look something like 127.0.0.1.

An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network....