Remotely starting up a personal computer.

[Ragnar]

Hello.

I was wondering, is there any possible way to start a powerred off computer from a remote location? By powered off, i mean turned off, but the light on the mobo still works. The motherbaord supports "Wake on LAN events" feature, which i hav eenabled, but i haven't got the slightest idea on what i need to do next, so if anyone maybe has any experience or knows how to do it, please help me out .

I am using windows XP, and i have two networked PC's (i wan't to be able to start the PC from a completely different location(outside the network)). BUT if there is no way to do that, one of the 2 PC's is always running (windows 2003 server) and acting as a home server, i guess i could RD to that PC and go further from there.

Thank you in advance, Ragnar.

 

[Nodsu]

You need a special program that can generate the "magic packet" containing the MAC address of the network card you want to use for wakeup. Most likely your router/firewall/ISP blocks multicast traffic and you have to use the other PC as the wake-on-LAN initiator.

A list of utilities here: http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/wakeonlan/mini-howto/wol-mini-howto-3.html

 

[Ragnar]

I downloaded "Magic Packet Utility" but to be quite honest, I have no idea what to do with it. I enterred the IP of the machine (192.168.1.100), and entered the correct MAC address, yet nothing happened . Would it be possible to generate some sort of script which I simply run from the server machine which would boot up the second machine? I have included the screenshots of all the info.

First picture (info1.png) - The machine I wan't to be able to turn on from the second machine. This machine is running windows XP Professional.

Second picture (info2.png) - This is ther sever, running windows 2003 server.

 

[Nodsu]

When the other machine is off, entering the IP address as the target is quite useless Read the documentation in case the utility wants to see the MAC address in a specific format. It may like all the hex digits conatenated, or separated by colons or whatever.

Try another utility perhaps? I am sure you can find one with a possibility to specify the target on the command line, thus allowing it to be used in scripts and such.

See the power management settings in BIOS and make sure PCI devices/LAN is allowed to wake up the computer?

(Oh, and Marvell gigabit is pure crap - it may just plain not work)

 

[alidabiri]

some mobo's have "wake on ring" feature (ASUS) along with "wake on lan" that start the machine when a call comes in through a modem. your mobo may have that feature as well.