Overview

Wake-on-LAN can be a frustrating technology to implement but easy to troubleshoot. This is because it requires appropriate BIOS, network card and, sometimes, operating system and router support to function reliably. In some cases, hardware may wake from one low power state but not from others. This means that due to hardware issues, the computer may be waking up from the 'fully-off state', but doesn't wake from sleep or hibernation or vice-versa. This article provides the steps to address these issues.

Process

1. Verify that the magic packets reach the target computer:
   • Verify that the network card supports this technology.
   • Depending on device make and model, some devices require extra configuration in BIOS setup; or in some cases cannot be woken from individual sleep states.
2. Configure the network card.
   The following options must be selected for the network card in Device Manager:
   • Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
   • Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby/wake the computer.
   • Only allow management stations to bring the computer out of standby.
3. Allow Magic packets (port UDP 9) through the router, if needed.
4. Download the attached free tools, WOLMonitor and WolGUI, to test WoL functionality if you have problems waking devices on your network.
   Use WoLMonitor to watch for WoL packets that are issued from the target computer using WoLGUI. This allows you to test the routing and addressing aspects of WoL to ensure the magic packets are reaching a given remote device. Depending on the complexity of your network, in some cases, WoL magic packets are filtered between different subnets, or when the packets attempt to pass through specific networking hardware.
5. Run Wake on LAN Monitor on the computer to wake up.
   1. Download and place WOLMonitor on the device you want to wake.
   2. Startup WoLMonitor on the remote device you are trying to wake.
   3. Input port 9.
6. Run WoLGUI on LanGuard server.
   1. Download and run WoLGUI.
   2. Input the remote device's MAC, IP and Subnet information into WoLGUI.
   3. Input port 9.
   4. Select Local Subnet in the Send Options drop-down, and click Wake Me Up.
      You should see a "Packet received" message in the WoLMonitor window running on the remote device. It indicates that the device successfully received your WoL magic packet.