If there are no pingbacks, don't show anything (if tags)

Although I’ve read several times through the WordPress Codex, I have difficulties to do what I want. Actually this is for certain parts of my blog, so I guess once I figure out how to do it I can make it work for all of them.

For example: If there are no pingbacks, the CSS coding is still shown (background, title etc.) which looks weird. Same for Recent Posts.

My setup for the them looks like this:

<?php if ( have_comments() ) : ?>

    <ul class="pingbacks"><h2>Pingbacks</h2>
<?php wp_list_comments(array(
  'callback'=>'mytheme_comment',
  'type'=>'pings',
)); ?>
    </ul>
 <?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?>

    <?php if ('open' == $post->comment_status) : ?>
        <!-- If comments are open, but there are no comments. -->

     <?php else : // comments are closed ?>
        <!-- If comments are closed. -->
        <p class="nocomments">Comments are closed.</p>

    <?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

And the function.php code for the comments:

function mytheme_comment($comment, $args, $depth) {
   $GLOBALS['comment'] = $comment; ?>
   <li <?php comment_class('clearfix'); ?> id="li-comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
     <?php echo get_avatar($comment,$size='63'); ?>
     <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID(); ?>">
      <div class="comment-meta commentmetadata clearfix">
        <?php printf(__('<strong>%s</strong>'), get_comment_author_link()) ?><?php edit_comment_link(__('<img src="https://www.zoomingjapan.com/wp-content/themes/alltuts/images/edit.gif">'),'  ','') ?> <span><?php printf(__('%1$s @ %2$s'), get_comment_date('Y/n/j'),  get_comment_time('G:i')) ?>
      </span>
  <div class="text">
          <?php comment_text() ?>
      </div>
      </div>

      <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
         <em class="comment-awaiting-moderation"><?php _e('Your comment is awaiting moderation.') ?></em>
         <br />
      <?php endif; ?>

      <div class="reply">
         <?php comment_reply_link(array_merge( $args, array('depth' => $depth, 'max_depth' => $args['max_depth']))) ?>
      </div>
     </div>
<?php }

Related Posts:

<h2>Related Posts</h2>                      

<!-- "previous page" action -->
<a class="prev browse left"></a>

<!-- root element for scrollable -->
<div class="scrollable" id=chained>   

   <!-- root element for the items -->
   <div class="items">

      <!-- 1-5 -->
      <div>

            <!-- Related Posts-->

                            <?php
                            $backup = $post;
                            $tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
                            if ($tags) {
                                $tag_ids = array();
                                foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;

                                $args=array(
                                    'tag__in' => $tag_ids,
                                    'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
                                    'showposts'=>4, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
                                    'caller_get_posts'=>1
                                );
                                $my_query = new wp_query($args);
                                if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
                                    while ($my_query->have_posts()) {
                                        $my_query->the_post();
                                    ?>
<div class="relatedPosts"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_post_thumbnail(array(120,80)); ?></a>
<div class="relatedPosts_title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></div></div>
                                    <?php
                                    }
                                    echo '';
                                }
                            }
                            $post = $backup;
                            wp_reset_query();
                             ?>

                            <!-- end Related Posts-->
      </div>

      <!-- 10-15 -->
      <div>

How do I get them to display everything (including CSS) only if there actually is content to show?

Thanks a lot in advance.