How to Check If the System is Down in Laravel

I want to check if the systems is Down

<?php
   ini_set("default_socket_timeout","05");
   set_time_limit(5);
   $f=fopen("https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask","r");
   $r=fread($f,1000);
   fclose($f);
   if(strlen($r)>1) {
   echo("<span class='online'>Up</span>");
   }
   else {
   echo("<span class='offline'>Down</span>");
   }

?> The code above only show if the url is available I want also to show Down if the system is provide this error Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)' in

via Chebli Mohamed