Need help with Wake on LAN

[Guest]

I've been trying to find a way to turn on all the computers in my computer
lab in the morning simply by pressing a single button.

I've noticed that there are settings in the bios that allows the computer to
"Wake on LAN" I'm not really familiar with this feature, but I'm assuming
that the computer will turn on if another device tries to communicate with
the computer via the NIC. Does anybody know of a utility that would try to
communicate to a computer through a MAC address and not the IP address?

Does anybody know if what I'm trying to do is possible or if I should just
keep dreaming?

 

[Jim C]

It has been my experience that this only works on cards where there is a
boot PROM installed on the network card that can boot the computer enough to
pass control to the BIOS.

Most network cards I have seen which have this capability do not have the
boot PROM installed.

Let me know what you find out,

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Harry Johnston]

It has been my experience that this only works on cards where there is a
boot PROM installed on the network card

This is not normally necessary for Wake On LAN functionality. I use WOL
extensively and don't have any problems in this regard.

that can boot the computer enough to pass control to the BIOS.

This isn't even meaningful. The BIOS passes control to the boot PROM (if
present) not the other way around.

Are you talking about network (PXE) booting? That's a completely different
thing, although some computers allow you to configure WOL to automatically use
PXE instead of the default boot sequence.


Not exactly. It wakes the computer if the NIC receives a packet containing a
specific pattern.

I use the software here to wake my computers in the morning:

<http://www.moldaner.de/wakeonlan/>

Some points to note:

Sometimes more than one setting needs to be turned on for WOL to function. For
example, you may need to enable it in the network card configuration and also
configure the BIOS to allow the network card to wake the system.

If the machine was running Windows before being shut down, WOL will only work if
the Windows network drivers support it. Most do, but sometimes you will need to
use the vendor drivers instead of the Microsoft drivers (or vice versa) or you
may need to explicitly enable it in the Windows device settings.

WOL usually won't work if the machine was shut down improperly or if there has
been a power cut (even if the machine was already shut down at the time).

Harry.

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
If all your computer are Wake On LAN compatible you can install a batch file
that invoke Magic Packets at startup.
WOL principle is described here, http://www.ezlan.net/WOL.html
With a little creativity it can be done.
Jack (MVP-Networking).