In recent decades, technological progress has allowed us to make giant strides, in every aspect of our daily life, making it more comfortable and facilitating some operations that until some time were uncomfortable and boring.
Wake On LAN Windows | How To Turn On The PC Remotely
In this guide, we will show you how to turn on the PC remotely by activating the Wake on LAN function on Windows 10 and Windows 11.
On the internet, there are numerous programs that can control a PC remotely such as TeamViewer and AnyDesk but obviously, before you can use them, you need to turn on the computer.
To overcome this problem I decided to make this guide, in which I show you how to turn on the PC remotely, using a feature present in the vast majority of network cards and a simple connection to the Internet.
This procedure can be useful at any time of the day. For example, let’s say you are in the kitchen making yourself a coffee and in the meantime, you want your PC to turn on.
To do this, at the end of this procedure, just run a specific application on your Smartphone and click on the start button. In doing so, when you return to the room, the PC will already be ready for use.
Before activating the Wake on LAN function, certain requirements must be met and certain functions must be enabled and disabled that prevent it from working properly.
Requirements To Activate Wake On LAN On Windows
Before continuing, it is right to answer a question that many of you will almost certainly be asking, namely: How does this function turn on the PC remotely? well, the operation is quite simple to understand:
When Wake on LAN is active, the PC waits to receive Ethernet packets, called ” Magic Packets “. These packages can be considered to all intents and purposes, a sort of alarm clock that can turn your PC back on. All modern computers almost certainly have this function while on older ones, you have to check.
As I said earlier, to turn on a PC remotely it is necessary to meet certain requirements:
- First of all, the PC must be connected to the Internet via Ethernet cable or at least have a compatible Wi-Fi card, with the Wake on LAN function and, this is not so common.
- It is also advisable to disable Wi-Fi on the PC that is connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, so that the Wake on LAN function works correctly. To disable Wi-Fi on the PC connected to the Internet via Ethernet cable, simply click on the computer-shaped icon at the bottom right, in the taskbar and from the drop-down menu, click on ” Wi-Fi ” to deactivate it correctly.
- It is also crucial, to disable Windows Fast Startup. To do this, click on Start and type Control Panel in the search bar. Once located, click on it and go to the Hardware and Sound category. Immediately after, click on ” Power options ” and from the menu on the left, click on ” Specify power buttons behavior “. Then click on the item ” Change settings currently unavailable ” and remove the check from ” Enable quick start “.
- However, remain in this screen, because another fundamental requirement for the Wake on LAN function to work correctly is to put the PC in hibernation mode, instead of turning it off completely. For compatible laptops, on the other hand, you need to connect them to electricity or use a charged battery.
- To make this function appear in the shutdown menu, it is necessary to check the “ Hibernation ” item next to it and click on Save changes to make the changes effective. With just one step, you’ll have turned off fast startup and enabled the hibernation function.
- The last requirement refers only to your connection. The Internet connection must in fact be managed by a router. This procedure does not work on custom networks or Microsoft virtual networks.
Enable Wake On Lan In The BIOS
Once these requirements are met, you need to enter the BIOS and enable the Wake on LAN feature. Entering the BIOS is a very simple and intuitive procedure: just restart the PC and repeatedly press a key that changes from PC to PC.
Generally, the button to press is displayed at the bottom of the screen while the PC is turned on. Generally, the most common keys are: F1 – F2 – F4 – F8 – F10 – F12 – DEL and ESC.
If the Windows logo appears, it means that the operation was not successful and therefore you will need to restart the PC and try to repeatedly press another key, until you access the BIOS correctly.
But anyway, once you have entered the BIOS, it is necessary to locate the Wake on LAN function in the settings and then enable it.
The name changes from PC to PC, depending on the motherboard and BIOS in use. Typically, this function takes on one of these nomenclatures:
- Wake on LAN (WOL)
- Wake Up
- Network Boot
- Power on By PCI-E
- Power Up On PCI/PCIE Devices
- Resume By PCI PME/LAN
In my case, I have an Asus motherboard with UEFI BIOS. To identify the Wake on LAN function, I had to move to the Advanced category, precisely in the AMP Configuration section.
Once in this position, I identified the item “Power On By PCI-E ” and enabled it by clicking on the “Enabled” item from the drop-down menu on the right.
Once you have enabled the Wake on LAN function, you need to save the changes by clicking the F10 button on the keyboard.
After saving the changes the PC will be restarted immediately. Now, you need to enable the power on via the network from the network driver configuration.
To do this, click on Start and type in the appropriate box: Device manager. Alternatively, you can right-click on the Start button and select the same item from the drop-down menu.
Once in this section, expand the list of network cards and locate the LAN card associated with the Ethernet cable or the Wi-Fi card, if you have one that supports Wake on LAN.
To locate the network card of the Ethernet cable, simply click on Start, type Control Panel, go to the Network and Internet category and finally click on the item ” Network and Sharing Center “. Then click on the Ethernet item, next to the writing: Connections.
Then click on properties to locate the name of the network card. The latter is located precisely under the heading ” Connect via:” In my case it is called Intel (R) Ethernet Connection (7) I219-V.
Once you have discovered the name, go back to ” Device Manager ” again, locate the network card associated with the Ethernet cable, click on it with the right mouse button and select the ” Properties ” option from the drop-down menu.
Then go to the ” Energy Saving ” section and check these 3 options:
- Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power
- Allow the device to wake the computer
- Only allow Magic Packet to wake the computer
Once done, do not click OK but go to the Advanced section. In this screen, it is recommended to enable the option: Activate on Magic package and all those concerning Wake on LAN such as: “ Activate on Pattern Match “. I recommend, enable any function inherent to Wake on LAN.
Then click on Ok to save the changes.
If these options are not present, the network adapter mounted on your PC does not support remote booting and receiving Magic Packets. All LAN network cards support this function while on Wi-Fi cards this is not always the case.
Enable these options, click on the ” Start ” button, type ” Control Panel “, go to the ” Network and Internet ” section, click on ” Network and Sharing Center ” and then on Ethernet. Then click on Details and write down the physical address of the network card somewhere, such as: 03-B4-C6-51-1B-55.
How To Turn On The PC Remotely Via Wake On LAN – 2 Methods
At this point, after having performed all these operations, you are finally ready to switch on the PC remotely using the Wake on LAN function.
This procedure can be performed from a mobile phone or other computer, by sending the Magic Packets. In this guide I will show you both procedures:
Turn On The PC Remotely Via Smartphone
Let’s start with the procedure from Smartphone: Take your mobile phone, connect to the same Wi-Fi network to which the PC is connected that is connected to the Internet via LAN cable and then go to the Play Store.
Then type Wake On Lan in the search bar and click Enter. Once located, click the Install button. Alternatively, you can click directly on this link to be redirected to the Play Store.
Once installed, start it and click on the + at the bottom right. Then click on ” Enter Manually ” and in the window that opens, give a name to the device (in this case I called it WebAssistance desktop PC) and assign the physical address you copied previously, in the ” MAC address ” box. Once done, click on “ Add Device “.
Once the application is configured, you just have to go back to the PC, click Start with the right mouse button and from the drop-down menu, select the item ” Hibernation “.
Once it has been placed in Hibernation, to switch on the PC remotely, simply start the Wake on LAN application, previously installed and configured on your Smartphone and finally click on the name of the device only once (e.g. WebAssistance fixed PC).
If everything went well, the PC will boot correctly.
Turn On The PC Remotely Using Another Computer
After showing you the procedure from a mobile phone, let’s see how to turn on the PC remotely using the same function, but from another PC.
To do this, you must first connect both PCs to the same network. Immediately after, you will need to connect to this page, scroll down, locate the item ” Click here to download version 2.1 of WOL.EXE (released October 16th, 2017)” and finally click on the link, highlighted in blue.
Once the download is complete, go to the folder where WOL.exe was downloaded and copy the path as text, here is an example: B: \ Users \ webassistanceita \ Downloads.
Then click on Start, type ” Command Prompt ” and run it as administrator. Immediately after that type ipconfig and click enter.
A series of useful information will appear on the network cards installed on your PC. Locate the Ethernet card and copy the IPv4 address to it. In my case it is: 192.168.1.10.
After obtaining the path of WOL.exe, the IP address and the physical address, you just have to type in the program, the command: CLS to delete all the information present. Immediately after, type in it, the following command:
path / Wol.exe “mac address” “ip address”. All this without quotes. Here is a practical example:
B: \ Users \ webassistanceita \ Downloads ” 04-D4-C8-58-1B-66 ” “ 192.168.1.10 ” (All without quotes) and click enter. Now, as if by magic, the other PC should have booted.