Wake on LAN?

dlockers

dlockers

dlockers

Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
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Hi folks,

Are there any tricks to this? I have tried to configure it before but given up and can't remember why. Long story short - I have a PC ~35M away (little HP desktop thing), and I've just setup another (MSI Gaming7 Intel i7 4790k) in the workshop (~20M away). I have a little HP thing also running HomeAssistant.

It is the one thing that I've always allowed to defeat me - is it as simple as a BIOS setting and then an "app" to send the magic packet?

Thanks!
 
In theory, yes but my experience is that not everything is equal when dealing with WoL. Look at the manual for the HP and confirm what type. Is it running windows? Have you also turned it on within device manager on the NIC itself?
 
WOL works fairly easily. But you need to be aware of a few basic things:

1. WOL from a non onboard NIC will not be able to wake the computer, as they are not powered and communicating with the motherboard that boots up in that fashion, no matter what your NIC may say; if it's not a soldered one on the IO of the motherboard, it's not going to wake your system. Supposedly servers and other specific devices can do this, but general consumer stuff doesn't.

2. This is why you need the BIOS setting that enables onboard WOL (with the onboard NIC). Without this, the system will not check for incoming WOL signals to power the system up (WOL).

3. Altogether, this means that if you're using a non motherboard NIC (say 2.5/5/10g card), these won't be able to wake the system, but you can use WOL (send signal to the one) on the motherboard NIC and then that'll wake the system up. You can set up the system that wakes to use the faster connection NIC instead (depends on OS). The weighting is listed in the Network settings of Windows, so if you set one higher than the other, it'll know to use one in preference of the other.

4. In Windows, remember to disable the check for Matching Packets, as otherwise the system can be woken by all sorts of signals hitting the WOL NIC.

That's pretty much most of what I remember when setting up my rigs lately. BUt yeah, should be fairly simple. I personally use a Powershell script that fires a WOL call to a specific MAC address on the local network to wake that system up instead of using an app. But either should work.
 
Meddling-Monk said:
WOL works fairly easily. But you need to be aware of a few basic things:

1. WOL from a non onboard NIC will not be able to wake the computer, as they are not powered and communicating with the motherboard that boots up in that fashion, no matter what your NIC may say; if it's not a soldered one on the IO of the motherboard, it's not going to wake your system. Supposedly servers and other specific devices can do this, but general consumer stuff doesn't.

2. This is why you need the BIOS setting that enables onboard WOL (with the onboard NIC). Without this, the system will not check for incoming WOL signals to power the system up (WOL).

3. Altogether, this means that if you're using a non motherboard NIC (say 2.5/5/10g card), these won't be able to wake the system, but you can use WOL (send signal to the one) on the motherboard NIC and then that'll wake the system up. You can set up the system that wakes to use the faster connection NIC instead (depends on OS). The weighting is listed in the Network settings of Windows, so if you set one higher than the other, it'll know to use one in preference of the other.

4. In Windows, remember to disable the check for Matching Packets, as otherwise the system can be woken by all sorts of signals hitting the WOL NIC.

That's pretty much most of what I remember when setting up my rigs lately. BUt yeah, should be fairly simple. I personally use a Powershell script that fires a WOL call to a specific MAC address on the local network to wake that system up instead of using an app. But either should work.
Click to expand...
Extremely helpful! And possibly uncovered some of the root causes of my previous issues lol. Thanks man. Will take a look once my 3M IEC extension comes lol.
 
Meddling-Monk said:
3. Altogether, this means that if you're using a non motherboard NIC (say 2.5/5/10g card), these won't be able to wake the system, but you can use WOL (send signal to the one) on the motherboard NIC and then that'll wake the system up. You can set up the system that wakes to use the faster connection NIC instead (depends on OS). The weighting is listed in the Network settings of Windows, so if you set one higher than the other, it'll know to use one in preference of the other.
Click to expand...

I have three PCs all using WoL via pci-e add-in cards, and in the case of one of them it's been fine with a two port NIC in a team, a four port NIC and currently a 2.5GbE card as the WoL trigger.

I have seen comments that some cheap NICs say that support WoL but lack the physical slot connection/support. However I've always checked the cards support it before purchase and as long as the motherboard allows WoL including via pci-e slots (sometimes there's a "power on by pcii devices" type option as well as WoL) then I've never had an issue.
 
Always found it to be a bit hit-and-miss. So many options have to right under Windows for it to work e.g. fast boot up needs to be turned off if I remember correctly.

One thing I do is install Ubuntu and see if it works on that. You then know that your BIOS settings are correct.
 
Simon42 said:
I have three PCs all using WoL via pci-e add-in cards, and in the case of one of them it's been fine with a two port NIC in a team, a four port NIC and currently a 2.5GbE card as the WoL trigger.

I have seen comments that some cheap NICs say that support WoL but lack the physical slot connection/support. However I've always checked the cards support it before purchase and as long as the motherboard allows WoL including via pci-e slots (sometimes there's a "power on by pcii devices" type option as well as WoL) then I've never had an issue.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I don't have any expansion card NIC's that aren't 10g (RJ45 based), and for 10g cards, that appears to be the general consensus around the internet (10g WOL is troublesome if not impossible, even when the chip supports it and supposedly has it enabled; lower cards didn't have this trouble). That's why and how I learned to do the dual NIC approach (onboard one to wake from, the expansion to transfer with). But the system it was being done on is a very old Z77 motherboard, with the last BIOS in 2014 and was also a beta one. So it might have missed out on the required BIOS updates to make it work (be able to power up from PCIe). Also, certain power states were troublesome for what I wanted it to boot from, so the onboard one was the only one it would do properly with.

I might give it another whirl as that system is now no longer being used and in the process of either being sold, given away or turned into an archive/file server (especially if I can get it to WOL from just the 10g expansion NIC). But thanks for that info, certainly would be interesting to see if I can get the 10g card to WOL, but if memory serves from a year ago, I'm pretty sure I tried every setting and it wouldn't budge. Fingers crossed. :)
 
dlockers said:
After reading all the comments; I think I may just use a "startup once power is restored" BIOS setting and a smart plug, lol.
Click to expand...

I had smart plugs as backup option on a couple of PCs but once I got the few settings sorted for WoL I have never needed them so I removed them as its another point of failure and I have had a couple of those plugs fail.
 
Simon42 said:
I had smart plugs as backup option on a couple of PCs but once I got the few settings sorted for WoL I have never needed them so I removed them as its another point of failure and I have had a couple of those plugs fail.
Click to expand...
The other thing of course, is if OP had hibernate/sleep/shutdown timers enabled to save power on the WOL system, they won't be able to boot it back up easily again, or at least, they can only shut down and then use the smart plugs to turn off then on to power the system back up again if using the smart plug approach. It's really inelegant compared to getting WOL up and running properly, but understandable if getting WOL working is a pain and/or not having success.
 
My HP N54L had been using it's 1Gb LAN for years and worked fine with WOL.
I have very recently bought 2.5Gb LAN cards, Realtek chipset, and fitted one of those to the HP.
That works a treat for the WOL function when I selected it within the device manager to wake up, only from magic packets.

I have the set on a timer to wake, and sleep, or manually do it via a WOL magic packet sender from my main PC.
 
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Vimes said:
My HP N54L had been using it's 1Gb LAN for years and worked fine with WOL.
I have very recently bought 2.5Gb LAN cards, Realtek chipset, and fitted one of those to the HP.
That works a treat for the WOL function when I selected it within the device manager to wake up, only from magic packets.

I have the set on a timer to wake, and sleep, or manually do it via a WOL magic packet sender from my main PC.
Click to expand...
What app are you using to send the packet?
 
I couldn't get the built in Intel NIC to work. It turns out Intel didn't support it in the drivers for Windows 11 (and possibly 10). I've now got a Realtek 2.5G card in there and that works no problem. Before that I had a half assed plan to use a smart plug, set the bios to turn the PC on after power lose then setup a routine in Home Assistant that just flicked the power off and back on again (but only if the power draw was under a certain amount so I couldn't accidently knock out power to the PC). This should cause the PC to turn on. It's a bit of a bodge but I can't see why it wouldn't work.
 
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