forking functrions to background

Hi,

Is it possible to make functions or system calls run in the background of an ASP script? I need to ping a numebr of different addresses, and as I could run these at the same time, it would make it a lot quicker, especially as a few of these addresses will always deliberatley time out, which holds the other pings back. I'd like to be able to run all simultaneously, but if i could at least run one ping (which i'm doing via a ping.dll module i found) in the background that would be great.

i've been searching around but for the life of me I can't find anything about this. does it exist at all?

incidentally if anyone could suggest a more flexible method to ping via ASP alone that would be gratefully recieved too

cheers,

chris
http://acidrip.sf.net