There are many times when you are trying to connect to an service. Depending on what service you are trying to connect to, there may not be a short circuit when the Server is not available at all. The following will verify that the server is accepting connections on a specific port so that you can "ping" specifically to your intended use port. T…

VerifyTCPConnectionExists.cs

using System.Net.Sockets;

private bool CheckForServer(string address, int port)
{  
	int timeout = 500;
	var result = false;
	try
	{
		using(var socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp))
		{
			IAsyncResult asyncResult = socket.BeginConnect(address, port, null, null);
			result = asyncResult.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(timeout, true);
			socket.Close();
		}
		return result;
	}
	catch { return false; }
}