Wake on Lan Questions

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 12:30:07 PM

I've been trying to implement Wake on Lan so that I can wake up my machines before business hours to run anti-virus scans and any other maintenance that I need to run so there is no slow down during working hours. It works just fine on my older Dell Optiplex 620s that run XP Pro, but none of my new Dell Optiplex 780s or 980s running Windows 7 will wake up.

The core problem seems to be that the Network adapters are not in a state where they can receive these packets. The indicator is that none of the lights are on for the NICs in the newer machines, where they are for the older machines. I've been into BIOS and enabled it on ALL of the machines, and I've even checked the Windows power settings on the newer machines. I'm obviously missing something, since I'm sure that the newer cards support this. The new machines are running Intel 82578DM network adapters. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Hans Manhave · June 21, 2011, 01:25:41 PM

In the network card properties, you did make sure no power management or allowing computer to turn off the NIC are enabled?

That chip is supposed to handle WOL.

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 01:30:56 PM

Quote from: HMan on June 21, 2011, 01:25:41 PM
In the network card properties, you did make sure no power management or allowing computer to turn off the NIC are enabled?

That chip is supposed to handle WOL.

Yes, I hit that one too. I just read the descriptions of these option however, and I'm beginning to wonder if it supports what I want to do. It says that it will wake from "standby" or "hibernation". Neither of those are what I want. I want it to wake from being turned off. Power state "S5" I believe they call it. Maybe I'll have to check the settings on my XP machines to see what they're set to.

Mark · June 21, 2011, 01:55:00 PM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 21, 2011, 01:30:56 PM
Yes, I hit that one too. I just read the descriptions of these option however, and I'm beginning to wonder if it supports what I want to do. It says that it will wake from "standby" or "hibernation". Neither of those are what I want. I want it to wake from being turned off. Power state "S5" I believe they call it. Maybe I'll have to check the settings on my XP machines to see what they're set to.

What you want to be able to do should be working as you expect it to. What are you using to wake them?

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 03:25:02 PM

I've tried a number of utilities to try and wake individual machines, but used the dos based WOL.EXE in a batch file and at a command prompt with MAC, to wake an individual machine. What is concerning me is that the NIC lights are not on when the machine is powered down. That is unlike the XP machines, which still show activity on the NIC lights when they are powered down. I did happen to notice that the Windows power settings are set to "always on" on the XP machines. Does this setting set some kind of power state or condition on the NIC, even when the machine is powered down? I wouldn't think that would make a difference when it is powered down, but I'm grasping for straws here.

Mark · June 21, 2011, 03:31:10 PM

No, that shouldn't make a difference. Have you checked the lights on the switch to see if they are off as well? Also, did you check all of the features of the NIC via device manager? I think you did, but I am being redundant anyway. Are you using the proper format for the MAC address? For example, the program I use requires the mac to be in xx:xx:xx:xx:xx format versus xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx.

I do believe that the issue lies in the power state. I would also double-check the BIOS settings again.

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 03:42:56 PM

Good point on the switch. I'll have to check that tonight. And yes, the MAC is correct as it was copied and pasted. I also got a "success" message from the program, saying that a magic packet was sent successfully. I will check the device manager settings again. I have double checked all of the BIOS settings and enabled all of the WOL settings there. Thanks, Mark.

Jan Regnier · June 21, 2011, 03:57:27 PM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 21, 2011, 03:42:56 PM
I also got a "success" message from the program, saying that a magic packet was sent successfully.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.......... I want a magic packet too.... I like magic when it comes to computer management!

Mark · June 21, 2011, 03:58:13 PM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 21, 2011, 03:42:56 PM
Good point on the switch. I'll have to check that tonight. And yes, the MAC is correct as it was copied and pasted. I also got a "success" message from the program, saying that a magic packet was sent successfully. I will check the device manager settings again. I have double checked all of the BIOS settings and enabled all of the WOL settings there. Thanks, Mark.

I didn't mean to check if the MAC was right -- meant the syntax the colon versus the hyphen, but since you got a success and it works for XP boxes, you are obviously formatting it properly.

Another thing I would suggest is that if you have multiple options, either in the BIOS or in the driver, only chose the Wake on LAN option. Don't do the "Both" or whatever the other ones are. For example, on my particular machine, an Intel 82567LM-3, I have options for "OS Controlled", "Wake on Directed Packet", "Wake on Magic & Directed", and "Wake on Magic Packet". I would chose the last one, since you know that you are sending a "Magic Packet".

I've had all kinds of different issues with different wake on LAN on different networks with different machines, and blah blah blah blah blah. lol I can't say there was ever one ting that made a difference or anything like that. You just need to figure out what works in your environment and stick with it. I think that you are definitely on to something with the NIC lights not being on. Also, I know that some power settings can be per user, so that might be somethign to look further into as well. Maybe set the power settings with Group Policy or something -- you just need to make sure the settings you're setting are in fact in use at the time of need.

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 04:10:46 PM

Thanks, Mark. I will specify only the "magic packet" option since it is set to "both" right now. And I will check the switch after hours. The funny thing is, the Intel manual actually mentions something about setting the state of the NIC before shutting it down. It's all in programming speak, so maybe you might understand it, but I don't speak C++, so it's all Greek to me.

Mark · June 21, 2011, 04:18:06 PM

Can you link me to the verbiage you speak of?

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 05:23:47 PM

Quote from: Mark on June 21, 2011, 04:18:06 PM
Can you link me to the verbiage you speak of?

I can't seem to find it now. But I did find this link, which is somewhat disheartening in that it says "Some newer machines do not support being woken up from a powered-off state." and "NOTE: S4 is the only ACPI mode currently supported by Dell.". Although this is for a Intel Pro line of adapters (I don't think these are "Pro Line" adapters, I'm still wondering if it will work on this adapter.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/network/p29351/en/wol.htm

Jeff Zylstra · June 21, 2011, 06:07:21 PM

OK. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure that I've got it figured out. There was another setting in BIOS "enable low power mode" that turns off the NIC when you shut down. That's why the lights weren't working when powered down. They're on now, so tomorrow at 5:00 AM, they should all be on. Thanks Mark!

Mark · June 22, 2011, 10:13:11 AM

Awesome! Glad I could help! (EDIT: Glad it helped. I didn't really do much

)

I just wrote a batch file this morning that matches the MAC from a text file and allows me to wake a machine on demand with ease like this:

Code Select

C:\>wake machinename

I got sick of looking up the MAC and typing it in or cutting and pasting, then changing the hyphen to a colon, etc. Now I can just wake machine on demand without having to think about anything. I never get up, but still don't gain weight. $:-\$

Jan Regnier · June 22, 2011, 10:41:54 AM

Did it work, Jeff?

Jeff Zylstra · June 22, 2011, 10:59:03 AM

No, it didn't work, unfortunately. I got in this morning and had 1 workstation that had "trust issues" and wouldn't speak to the domain controller. I couldn't get a hold of Dr. Phil, so I had to un-join and re-join the computer to the domain to get it running again.

I don't know if my batch file was executed or not. I run it as a scheduled task on the server, so I'll have to check if it ran this morning or not. None of the machines were on, not even the XP machines, so I'm assuming that it didn't run for some reason since the XP machines will usually wake up from that batch file.

Alice · June 22, 2011, 11:04:25 AM

Jeff - put a pause at the end of your batch file so the window doesn't close. You'll be able to see any errors during execution.

Jeff Zylstra · June 22, 2011, 11:10:28 AM

Thank you, Alice, I'll do that!

Mark · June 22, 2011, 11:14:26 AM

+1 for Alice! @pause is a great idea for this situation.

Alice · June 22, 2011, 11:35:20 AM

you're welcome

It's how I test them to make sure they work. Scheduled Tasks will run them even if they are broken. All it cares about is that it kicked it off.
Hope it works for you Jeff!

Jeff Zylstra · June 22, 2011, 12:08:17 PM

Well, I shut down one Windows 7 machine and was successful in getting it to wake up from the command line using the same WOL.EXE utility that is in the batch file. I just have to figure out now why it didn't work from the batch file, since windows task manager says that it executed successfully this morning. I'll have to try to execute it using the "run now" command from the task manager along with the pause command in my script. Success is only a moment away!

Jeff Zylstra · August 03, 2011, 11:12:21 AM

I finally got it to work, but it took a couple of tricks to get it to function properly.

For some reason I had to change the task scheduler option to "run only when user is logged on". For some reason it would absolutely not work with the "run whether user is logged on or not" option.

I also had to fake out the network because only the first machine would wake up, and the rest of the packets were getting lost or ignored. I used a simple trick to cause a time delay between each command. Here's the code:

Code Select


REM faxserver.dza.com             
mc-wol.exe 00:13:78:A4:46:AE
PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 >NUL

Pinging the non-existing IP address acts like a timer with a 5 second timeout before moving on to the next command. This is enough time for my network to allow the next transmission of the wake up packets. Seems to work well now, and my machines now wake up early for their weekly bath and virus cleaning scans.

Mark · August 03, 2011, 11:15:32 AM

Excellent! You could probably have just pinged an existing IP all the same, but yes, this is an old trick. Odd that it works that way for you -- I have a master script to wake all my machines and don't have a delay in there anywhere. There is always something different between networks though.

Glad you got it figured out.

Jeff Zylstra · August 03, 2011, 11:20:55 AM

Thanks, Mark. It's a great benefit to both me and my users to not have to run virus scans during working hours. I don't know who's "law" it is, but it always seems that the available computer resources can always be consumed by the program or utility to be run. If that "law" hasn't been written yet, I'm laying claim to it!