You may want to see Net::Ping.

use Net::Ping;

$host = shift;
$p = Net::Ping->new();
$p{"timeout"} = 0.05; # or whatever

print "$host is alive.\n" if $p->ping($host);

$p->close();
[download]

Update:

# $p{"timeout"}   is wrong 
# $p->{"timeout"} is correct
[download]