Wake on Lan issue "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

[Subnetwork]

Under device management for my NIC card... In order for me to enable the "Allow this device to wake the computer" I have to enable the option to "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and guess what that does? And when I try to check the "Allow this device to wake the computer" and uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" it unchecks the "allow this device to wake the computer" when I exit device manager and go back in...

Anyone have any idea on how to fix this?

Thanks,

 

[Shaun o]

Why would you want to turn the device off to save power.
If you intend to use the Wol function of a Nic, the computer must be in standby mode or sleep mode at least.
That is how you use the Wol feature of a Nic.

The system is never completely powered down, but in a low power state mode to be able to sense the ping or packet of information to the Nic to wake the computer up from hibernation or sleep mode.
It does not mean you can fully turn the system in some cases of Nic devices or what motherboard is used.
The enable wol option should be found in a section of your bios and must be enabled via the bios if the board supports the full power up of the system from being in its off state.

You also have to set the right Acpi S based power modes in the bios for powering and system wake up from hibernation or suspended mode./ sleep mode.

 

[Subnetwork]

Why would you want to turn the device off to save power.
If you intend to use the Wol function of a Nic, the computer must be in standby mode or sleep mode at least.
That is how you use the Wol feature of a Nic.

The system is never completely powered down, but in a low power state mode to be able to sense the ping or packet of information to the Nic to wake the computer up from hibernation or sleep mode.
It does not mean you can fully turn the system in some cases of Nic devices or what motherboard is used.

I'm not but it forces me to enable/check the box of the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option before I can check the "allow this device to wake the computer."

The WOL setting works for about 10-15 minutes after the computer has been shutdown or is in standby, and after that it stops working yet the lights on my NIC card are still on and everything else seems to be in order.

 

[bill001g]

WoL has been hijacked by microsoft for one of their special shutdown things so you have to be careful what is being configured.

I am going to suspect that if it works for 15 minutes you are attempting to wake this device using a IP address. The nic has no concept of IP address it only supports mac addresses and to follow the standard you need to send a packet to a broadcast mac address and the packet should contain the WoL mac in a special pattern in the payload.

 

[jsmithepa]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the DEEP SLEEP feature of the newer processors.

Now I assume that you know WOL is a very specific term, it means you wakeup/turn on your PC via a MAGIC PACKET. Typically you use a little App to send that packet.

Be sure you have the latest NIC driver from the Mobo's vendor. My WOL works perfectly, even from the Internet going through 2 NATs, Woo-hoo!

 

[luckysoul777]

On my computer unless I have "allow this computer to turn off the device to save power" checked, wake on LAN will not work at all. However, even with this option checked, it will only work for a short sleep. If the sleep is extended, then the computer turns off the power to the network adapter and as a result wake on LAN stops working. I have my computer configured to never hibernate or shutdown automatically. Thus, it should have remained under sleep even after extended period. It does not surprise me the network card is eventually turned off after long sleep because it is doing what this checkbox says! The question to ask is how we keep it ON ALWAYS?!

I have also read many other articles indicating that in order to have wake on LAN working, this option should always be unchecked. It makes sense if the description is taken literally. If we want to enable wake on LAN, the network card should always be powered, right? Unfortunately, in reality when this option is unchecked on my PC, the power to the network card is cut *immediately* upon sleep. I cannot even wake it up right afterwards.

Then I stumble on this article,

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2740020/information-about-power-management-setting-on-a-network-adapter,

it suggests the actual value that gets written to the registry actually depends on the ORDER THAT YOU CHECK THESE BOXES!

This is poor engineering to say the least. Further, 0 or 1 is not determined by if the box is checked, but instead it depends on deviation from the default state, i.e. if the default is checked, and you uncheck it, the corresponding hex value becomes 1. Likewise if the default is unchecked, and you check it, the corresponding hex value also becomes 1.

With such a confusion mechanism, I am not surprised that different motherboards behave differently since it probably confuses many PC manufactures.

To accomplish my goal of always able to wake up my PC even after long sleep, ie. the network card must always be powered under sleep and be waken up by magic packet only, here is what I have done.

I've entered a value of 0, the default, under PcPCapabilities in the registry and ignored the "Power Management" tab all together since I don't want different order of checking these boxes to yield different values. Further, I also believe when it is left at default, it is less likely to encounter false interpretation by a PC manufacture. With the default value of 0, you get "Allow this computer to turn off the device to save power" and "Allow this device to wake the computer" both checked, and it leaves "Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer" unchecked.

To limit to only magic packet, I click under the Advanced tab -> Property -> Wake on pattern match -> change it to disabled. I also double check the property right above it, Wake on Magic Packet, is enabled.

Hope this helps.