How to enable Wake ON Lan

A

albany

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
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64
Hi,

I have 4 computers and a laptop on a home network. I would like to use one of the PC's as a server to stream media 24/7. All run Win7 and are wired in other than the laptop.

My preferred server machine runs on an ASUS AT5IONT board. I need to know how to enable WOL. It seems to be setup in the BIOS and the NIC cards settings appear OK but as soon as the computer sleeps it disappears off the network and there is no way to wake it.

Thanks for your help.
 
what are you using to try and wake it up?
WOL doesn't send a packet to the IP address, rather than MAC address of the device.

You also need to make sure you selected the correct sleep setting in the BIOS that works with WOL (can't remember off the top of my head with S sleep it needs to be)
 
When using WOL it wouldn't show up, that is why you are waking it up. Wake on LAN turns on a computer that is off either due to the power being off or it being asleep so it isn't able to be connected to.

What program are you trying to use to turn the computer on?
 
I dont have a choice as to sleep setting in the BIOS. I think it automatically S3.

Not using any programme. Didn't know I had to, thought I could do it automatically in Windows. I'm a noob to networking.

So I guess this question becomes what programme do I use to setup WOL and how.

Cheers.
 
You've got to use a program to send the magic packet to the MAC.

EDIT - Or if you've got a router with DD-WRT or Tomato it can usually send magic packets to WOL too.
 
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Yes, you use a program and pass it the mac address and it sends a magic packet. Some programs will give you a GUI and store all your macs in it. I use a program (I think it is mc-wol) that you run from the command line and just pass the Mac address.
 
ok thanks to all looks like i have to find a free programme to send the packet. will do some google.
 
It is kind of odd that Microsoft hasn't built it into Windows in some form. It's not anything proprietary that I'm aware of.

A Magic Packet basically consists (and yes, I did just have to look this up again to be sure) of a broadcast containing six bytes of all 1s followed by the target MAC repeated 16 times.

So, in computer terminology, this is "ON ON ON ON ON ON! HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU!" :D
 
Electrofreak said:
It is kind of odd that Microsoft hasn't built it into Windows in some form. It's not anything proprietary that I'm aware of.

A Magic Packet basically consists (and yes, I did just have to look this up again to be sure) of a broadcast containing six bytes of all 1s followed by the target MAC repeated 16 times.

So, in computer terminology, this is "ON ON ON ON ON ON! HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU, HEY YOU!" :D
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Yes and no. Normally anyone that wants this functionality will also need a way to track all their macs also so they will need more that just a wol command. That is where most of your inventory stuff comes into place. System center has it built in, as do a lot of 3rd party inventory systems as they would know what the Mac address of the pc is
 
Exavior said:
Yes and no. Normally anyone that wants this functionality will also need a way to track all their macs also so they will need more that just a wol command. That is where most of your inventory stuff comes into place. System center has it built in, as do a lot of 3rd party inventory systems as they would know what the Mac address of the pc is
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Pfft. That's what ARP requests are for! :p

EDIT - Oh yeah... going to be hard to get an ARP response from something that's sleeping. Pfft, that's what locally-maintained ARP caches are for! :p

In all seriousness tho, when I worked providing support for the guv, our remote management / asset tracking software provided WOL function as well. Stands to reason if you've got the MACs on file. Perhaps Microsoft just hasn't found an implementation that they feel comfortable with.
 
1 minute on google led me to a freeprogramme called emco. should be able to switch on with a click or two rather than going into thecommand line and typing addresses. will try tomorrow.
 
Electrofreak said:
Pfft. That's what ARP requests are for! :p

EDIT - Oh yeah... going to be hard to get an ARP response from something that's sleeping. Pfft, that's what locally-maintained ARP caches are for! :p
Click to expand...

Lol, yeah that is my first way to get the ip. Check my arp table, if not there then look at a few places it would recorded like my inventory system (which I should probably just configure to do the wol) or something like that.
 
Electrofreak said:
Pfft. That's what ARP requests are for! :p

EDIT - Oh yeah... going to be hard to get an ARP response from something that's sleeping. Pfft, that's what locally-maintained ARP caches are for! :p

In all seriousness tho, when I worked providing support for the guv, our remote management / asset tracking software provided WOL function as well. Stands to reason if you've got the MACs on file. Perhaps Microsoft just hasn't found an implementation that they feel comfortable with.
Click to expand...

You changed your post on me :p like I said it is in system center. So that is how they decided to implement it. At that point the program would have that MAC on hand and be able to use that, they just haven't put any built in command for you to just from a command line.
 
Exavior said:
You changed your post on me :p like I said it is in system center. So that is how they decided to implement it. At that point the program would have that MAC on hand and be able to use that, they just haven't put any built in command for you to just from a command line.
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Yeah sorry bout that I tend to re-edit my posts about a hundred times because I've always got something else to say.

I forgot System Center was a Microsoft product... frankly I've never used it!
 
Many thanks to all on this thread. Using EMCO the WOL works just fine. Switching on machines with two clicks. Pity simple packet sending is not built into Windows but there you go.
 
albany said:
Many thanks to all on this thread. Using EMCO the WOL works just fine. Switching on machines with two clicks. Pity simple packet sending is not built into Windows but there you go.
Click to expand...

Think it is probably one of those things of the likeliness of somebody needing ONLY that vs needing a larger software suite. Your home user 99.9% of the time will not need that feature so it isn't going to be in those versions for sure. For a business, not all of them will need it or use it, those that will in addition to needing the command will need a way to track all MAC addresses. Which means you need a way to keep a list of all your computers and their MAC address info. Which means that you will need to have your computer constantly monitor that computer for changes in mac addresses and also have a way to know what computers are on the network... at that point you are getting into the area of asset tracking. They could put a simple command in for sending the magic packet, but you would have a lot of people that wouldn't need it / use it and others that would need / want more. So that gives you only a small set that would actually use the command. Plus pretty sure somebody would bitch for Microsoft keeping people from using their program to do this :rolleyes:
 
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