Ever wish you could wake your computer out of sleep mode without trudging over to it and pressing the power button? Wake-on-LAN allows you to turn a computer on using its network connection, so you can start it up from anywhere in the house with the tap of a button. For example, I often use Chrome Remote Desktop to access my workstation upstairs, without actually having to be up there. Normally, I’d first need to go upstairs to wake the computer up from sleep, but thanks to a feature called Wake-on-LAN, I can wake that computer up with a “magic packet” sent from my phone or laptop. This means I can remote in without hassle. Here’s how
Does Your Computer Support Wake-on-LAN?
Wake-on-LAN has a few caveats when it comes to support. First, the network card of the computer being woken up needs to support the feature. Pretty much any modern Ethernet adapter will support Wake-on-LAN, but wireless adapters rarely do. If you’re using one, you’ll be able to send the magic packet over Wi-Fi, but the one receiving it will likely need to be plugged in via Ethernet. Check your computer’s documentation or BIOS to see if it supports “Wake-on-Wireless-LAN” or “Wake-on-WLAN.” Second, Wake-on-LAN is designed to wake up another computer on your network, not another network, so you won’t be able to wake up the desktop at home from the coffee shop. There are ways to make this work, so I’ll try to lead you in the right direction.
Enable Wake-on-LAN in the BIOS
Before you can use the feature, you’ll need to enable Wake-on-LAN at the hardware level in the computer’s BIOS. To do this, reboot your PC and press a key at the boot screen—usually Delete, F2, or some other function key (it’ll usually say on screen). Once you enter the BIOS menu, poke around for the Wake-on-LAN option. On some machines, it will be very clearly labeled in the sleep and wake settings. In other cases, like on my MSI motherboard, it’s part of the Resume By PCI-E Device setting. You can see in the image below that this setting mentions “integrated LAN controllers,” which is exactly what we want. Toggle that setting to Enabled.
That’s all I needed to do on my machine, but there may be other sleep or hibernate settings you have to tweak here. It varies by PC, so you should look up directions for the PC’s specifications, or do a little trial and error, if you run into any problems.
(Credit: PCMag / MSI)
Enable Wake-on-LAN in Windows
Once you’ve rebooted into Windows, you also need to enable Wake-on-LAN on the OS side. Click the Start menu, search for “Device Manager,” then click the entry to launch the Device Manager. Find the Network Adapters section in the Device Manager, then expand it to reveal your network interfaces. Right-click on the Ethernet adapter—mine is called Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (4) 1219-LM—and select Properties.
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
Click the Advanced tab, then scroll down to Wake On Magic Packet and ensure it’s set to Enabled using the drop-down box on the right. (This option wasn’t available on all of my test machines, but Wake-on-LAN still worked on each of them, so don’t worry if you don’t see it.)
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
Next, click the Power Management tab in that same window and check two boxes: Allow This Device to Wake the Computer and Only Allow a Magic Packet to Wake the Computer. Click OK and exit the Device Manager.
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
Optional: Change Power Options
Some computers may only support Wake-on-LAN from sleep, while others will allow it to wake up from a powered off state. You may need to tweak the power options in the BIOS or in Windows’ Control Panel under Hardware and Sound > Power Options. Some people also find that they need to disable their computer’s fast startup feature for this to work. If you otherwise can’t get Wake-on-LAN to work properly, try turning it off. Click Choose what the power buttons do or Choose what closing the lid does, then click Change settings that are currently unavailable and uncheck Turn on fast startup.
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
Wake Your Computer With the Right App
Finally, to wake up your computer over the network, you’ll need a Wake-on-LAN app on another device. Some programs, that you likely already have, have built-in Wake-on-LAN features. In other cases, a separate program might be needed to wake up your PC. TeamViewer has this capability. Open the program and click the Wake Up button to wake up any sleeping PC connected to your TeamViewer account. Other remote access tools may also support Wake-on-LAN, so check with your program of choice to see what settings need to be enabled for it to work.
If you’re trying to wake a PC from another Windows machine, I recommend NirSoft’s WakeMeOnLan. It will scan the network and provide a list of devices, so you don’t have to remember the correct IP address every time. Just click the machine that needs waking and hit Wake Up. Depicus is another good tool, but you have to enter the IP address, MAC address, subnet mask, and port number for the remote PC. For mobile devices, use Mocha WOL (iOS) or Wake On Lan (Android).
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If all goes well, the computer should wake right up when you hit the wake up button. If it doesn’t, check its BIOS settings, Windows settings, and the configuration of the Wake-on-LAN app to make sure everything is set properly for your specific hardware. To wake up the computer quickly without scanning each time, I recommend setting up a static IP address for the device, so it doesn’t change.
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
Out of the House? Use Wake-on-WAN
There are times where you might want to wake your computer up while out of the house, like when you’re on vacation or working at a coffee shop. This is known as Wake-on-WAN, and it’s much more complex. Instead of sending the magic packet to the computer’s internal IP address, it’s sent to the router’s external IP address—the one shown on whatismyipaddress.com. You can then use a feature called port forwarding on the router to forward the magic packet to the correct computer.
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Unfortunately, Wake-on-LAN wasn’t really meant to be used like this, so there’s no one easy way to get it working; it depends heavily on your network setup. However, head to the router’s configuration page and locate the port-forwarding section of the router (if you can’t find it, portforward.com can help). Forward the Wake-on-LAN port to your home network’s broadcast address. The port is usually port 7 or 9, and the broadcast address is typically the router’s IP address with “.255” as the final octet, so 192.168.1.255, for example. That will broadcast the magic packet to the entire network, where it’ll be accepted by the MAC address you’ve specified.
(Credit: PCMag / Netgear)
Unfortunately, most routers disallow forwarding ports to the broadcast address, so there’s a good chance this won’t work, but it’s worth a shot. If your router won’t allow that, there are some workarounds. For example, you could try disabling JavaScript on the router configuration page so it allows the broadcast address to be entered into the port-forwarding box. You could also change the subnet mask to create a new broadcast address. Read more about these workarounds from this archived page.
If you have a router with more advanced configuration, like one running the DD-WRT firmware, you can use a combination of port forwarding and ARP tables to trick the router into forwarding the port to the broadcast address. This DD-WRT wiki describes it in more detail.
(Credit: PCMag / DD-WRT)
Wake-on-WAN Alternative: An Always-On Computer
You can see how Wake-on-WAN gets a little tricky. I prefer an easier solution: An always-on computer inside the network that I can remote into and send magic packets around the house. I have a home server running Windows, and it’s on 24/7. So when I’m away from home, I just use Chrome Remote Desktop to remote into that always-on PC, use WakeMeOnLan to send a magic packet from that machine to my workstation, then remote into my workstation once it’s awake. It’s a bit roundabout, but it works!
Best of all, this can be done with the hardware you already own. Got an old laptop collecting dust? Stick it in the corner, set it to run with the lid closed and access it with a remote desktop program. Got a NAS device running at all times, or even a Raspberry Pi? SSH into it and use the command line to send that magic packet. As long as the magic packet itself comes from inside the network, Wake-on-LAN should work without too much stress.
(Credit: PCMag / Microsoft)
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Whitson Gordon
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Whitson Gordon is a writer, gamer, and tech nerd who has been building PCs for 10 years. He eats potato chips with chopsticks so he doesn’t get grease on his mechanical keyboard.
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