Wake on lan Question

[Michael C]

I've always had a wake on lan on my PC which I use almost daily to wake my
home machine up from the office. I upgraded to a bigabyte board but never
checked to make sure it had wol. I appears it doesn't. Is there any way with
a bit of inventiveness and a soldering iron that I can get WOL to work. From
what I understand it's fairly simple and just sends 5V to the board. Can I
just get it to trigger the power switch?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Paul]

I've always had a wake on lan on my PC which I use almost daily to wake my
home machine up from the office. I upgraded to a bigabyte board but never
checked to make sure it had wol. I appears it doesn't. Is there any way with
a bit of inventiveness and a soldering iron that I can get WOL to work. From
what I understand it's fairly simple and just sends 5V to the board. Can I
just get it to trigger the power switch?

Thanks,
Michael

There is a bit more to it than that. Like recognizing the
"magic packet" format, when seen on the link.

You can purchase a LAN card with WOL capability.

There are two standards for WOL. If you have an old motherboard, you
need to use an old LAN card. The old method uses a cable that
goes from the LAN card, to a header on an old motherboard.

The new method uses a dedicated signal on the PCI slot called
PME. If you find a LAN card that advertises WOL, and yet there
is no header on the LAN card, that means the card is using the
PME pin on the PCI connector instead.

For a PME capable motherboard, you look in the BIOS, as there
will be an enable/disable for PME. The LAN card can be
plugged into any PCI slot, as the PME signal is bussed to
all slots. When you enable PME in the BIOS, that will allow
the LAN card to wake the computer.

If the built-in LAN chip on the motherboard had Wake On Lan
capability, PME was wired up, and then for some strange reason,
there was no 3VSB to power the chip, then yes, get out your
soldering iron. But is is improbable that they would
miss out the simplest thing, and do all the complicated
stuff. A bit more research may show you that the capability
was there, all along.

Maybe if you mention the motherboard model number, it would
give someone a chance to read up on it.

Paul

 

[Michael C]

There is a bit more to it than that. Like recognizing the
"magic packet" format, when seen on the link.

I understand that. I had it working previously with my old PC. It had a
gigabit wol card with a wol 3 pin connector to the motherboard.

You can purchase a LAN card with WOL capability.

I was thinking of using the one I have and running 5V and ground from the
power supply to the 3pin WOL connector on the card. Then I just need to work
out what to do with the other pin. Can I wire it straight to the power
button or will I need to do more than that? Naturally this is a last resort
if nothing else works.

The new method uses a dedicated signal on the PCI slot called
PME. If you find a LAN card that advertises WOL, and yet there
is no header on the LAN card, that means the card is using the
PME pin on the PCI connector instead.

For a PME capable motherboard, you look in the BIOS, as there
will be an enable/disable for PME. The LAN card can be
plugged into any PCI slot, as the PME signal is bussed to
all slots. When you enable PME in the BIOS, that will allow
the LAN card to wake the computer.

If the built-in LAN chip on the motherboard had Wake On Lan
capability, PME was wired up, and then for some strange reason,
there was no 3VSB to power the chip, then yes, get out your
soldering iron. But is is improbable that they would
miss out the simplest thing, and do all the complicated
stuff. A bit more research may show you that the capability
was there, all along.

I would have thought it should be there but I can't find any mention in the
manual at all. I've got a spare card that claims to support WOL but doesn't
have the 3 pin connector but I couldn't get it to work in my previous PC.
Possibly because it didn't have pci 2.2 as you said. I'll give this card a
try tonight.

Maybe if you mention the motherboard model number, it would
give someone a chance to read up on it.

I don't have the exact model on me at the moment but I'm pretty sure it's
this one. The layout is exactly the same as this board but I think mine has
a couple of extra SATA ports.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2630

 

[Michael C]

Maybe if you mention the motherboard model number, it would
give someone a chance to read up on it.

I had a look through the manual and it appears the motherboard supports PME
(page 42 on the link I sent). I have a lan card which I believe also
supports PME so I can probably get that to work. It would be handy if the
onboard gigabit lan supported wol but searching the manual for WOL or "wake
on lan" doesn't produce a single hit. All the PCI slots are full (it only
has 3) so I'll have to discard (pun intended) something.

Michael

 

[Paul]

I understand that. I had it working previously with my old PC. It had a
gigabit wol card with a wol 3 pin connector to the motherboard.


I was thinking of using the one I have and running 5V and ground from the
power supply to the 3pin WOL connector on the card. Then I just need to work
out what to do with the other pin. Can I wire it straight to the power
button or will I need to do more than that? Naturally this is a last resort
if nothing else works.


I would have thought it should be there but I can't find any mention in the
manual at all. I've got a spare card that claims to support WOL but doesn't
have the 3 pin connector but I couldn't get it to work in my previous PC.
Possibly because it didn't have pci 2.2 as you said. I'll give this card a
try tonight.


I don't have the exact model on me at the moment but I'm pretty sure it's
this one. The layout is exactly the same as this board but I think mine has
a couple of extra SATA ports.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2630

I looked in the manual, and the LAN chip is RTL8111B.

The chip supports Wake On Lan. The BIOS has PME enabled by default.
All you need to do now, is find the advanced setting for the RealTek
chip, and enable WOL in there.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/...gid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=11

Datasheet for the RTL8111B is here (one of three FTP servers provided
by RealTek). AMD Magic Packet and a couple other options are mentioned.
I don't know all the various flavors of packet that can be used. Some
chips also have a more basic, wake on activity, which is virtually
useless for computer applications (because it stays awake a lot).

ftp://210.51.181.211/cn/nic/spec-8111b(140).pdf

I'd work on some control panels, before warming up the soldering
iron.

Paul

 

[Michael C]

I looked in the manual, and the LAN chip is RTL8111B.

Thanks for spending the time to look at this.

The chip supports Wake On Lan. The BIOS has PME enabled by default.
All you need to do now, is find the advanced setting for the RealTek
chip, and enable WOL in there.

How would I do that? I can't find anything in the motherboards bios.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/...gid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=11

Datasheet for the RTL8111B is here (one of three FTP servers provided
by RealTek). AMD Magic Packet and a couple other options are mentioned.
I don't know all the various flavors of packet that can be used. Some
chips also have a more basic, wake on activity, which is virtually
useless for computer applications (because it stays awake a lot).

ftp://210.51.181.211/cn/nic/spec-8111b(140).pdf

I'd work on some control panels, before warming up the soldering
iron.

Sounds like a good idea.

Michael

 

[Michael C]

Look in the operating system properties for the network
controller, setting should be there.

Cool (mike puts soldering iron away). I would have never thought to look in
windows for something that works before windows is booted up. Now it works
with the PCI card but not the onboard so that's my next challenge. The
onboard had an option to turn WOL on but there is no option to select the
method. The PCI card has options of Link Change, Magic Packet, Magic Packet
and Pattern Match, none and Pattern Match. Is it possible the onboard card
only supports 1 of these options which is different to what I'm sending.
AFAIK, the program I am using sends a Magic Packet.

Once the bit is set to do this, system can be turned
soft-off as with front case switch or OS shutdown but if AC
power is cycled (wall outlet or PSU rear switch flipped) the
system will need boot OS again to set this before being
turned soft-off again.

Is there any way around this? I can get it to default to power on after
power loss I guess.

Michael