When the house I currently live in was under construction, my family decided that they wanted our living room area to have a very clean appearance. In our previous house, the entertainment area was a complete mess due to a combination of poor cable management as well as clutter created by equipment such as the home theater receiver, HTPC, smart tv box as well as the Blue-ray player. To eliminate the presence of such devices from the living room, HDMI, USB, ethernet as well as coaxial cables were installed behind the TV mount during the framing stages of the house. These in-wall rated cables ran to the basement where a specific area was allocated for all the Audio/Video equipment in the house. Unfortunately, fixing the “clutter” gave rise to another problem; how would we control the equipment in the basement without physically going to the basement each time we wanted to alter a setting? For devices such as the Blue-ray player which featured an Infrared input (IR) the solution was to purchase and setup an Infrared blaster (or RF universal remote). However, this was not possible for the HTPC which featured no IR ports. In turn, Wake on LAN as well as a 2.4Ghz Keyboard/Mice was used.
The Video Tutorial (For Windows Based PC’s Only)
In this video tutorial, we look at how to configure your computer to power on using Wake on LAN (WOL). As defined on Wikipedia, Wake on LAN is, “an Ethernet computer networking standard that allows a computer to be turned on or woken up by a network message.” The 11 minute video below will take you through the entire configuration process (From hardware configuration to router configuration to smartphone client configuration) for a windows based pc. Although the video uses Microsoft Windows 7 to demonstrate the steps, enabling Magic Packet on Windows Vista and older versions should be identical (they all have the device manager).
Components of the Video and corresponding times:
- New Years Introduction: 0:00 – 0:11
- Explanation/Demonstration of WOL Capabilities + A look at my setup: 0:12 – 3:08
- Configuring your HTPC hardware to recognize Magic Packets: 3:09 – 5:24
- Finding IP address of your HTPC & Setting Static LAN IP via Router configurations: 5:50 – 8:00
- Configuring Smartphone client to direct Magic Packet towards HTPC: 8:08 – 11:30
Alternative options for Apple Users
Unfortunately, Apple’s hardware does not support booting from a powered off state via network packets (besides the Xserve which features Lights out Management; but you’re not planning on using a $2000+ system for HTPC purposes right?). In turn, individuals using a Mac Mini or a similar Apple computing device for their media center purposes may be required to put their computer to sleep when not in use (rather than completely powering it down).
Option 1: Configuring OS X for Wake on Wireless Support
To configure WOL under OS X, the only thing that needs to be done is to ensure that your device is connected to the home network via ethernet and that the “Wake for network access” setting is ticked off under the Energy Saver options within the System Preferences. Now you may use a client such as NetAwake to remotely wake your mac up. If you are doing this with a laptop (Macbook Pro), ensure that the lid is not shut or WOL won’t function. Additionally, newer Mac’s have the ability to use their built in Airport Express cards to receive magic packets while they sleep. To see whether your system supports the service, navigate to system information and check under Wi-fi tab for “Wake on Wireless” support (Apparently WOL via Wifi only functions with networks using the Apple Airport Extreme router).
Option 2: Use LogMeIn to configure WOL (Cross Platform Software)
LogMeIn is a free application currently available for Windows, OS X, Linux (Beta), Android, WebOS, and iOS that allows you to quickly access/manage your computers remotely. After installing the LogMeIn client on your PC/Mac (the one you wish to remotely boot up), you can use the web interface or another device (such as your smartphone or tablet since LogMeIn has a client for these devices) to send WOL packets or even access the computer via remote desktop. This is the simplest option for those who do not wish to mess around with the BIOS, Network Adapter configurations or router IP addresses. To see a demonstration of LogMeIn in action, check out the video below:
There doesn't seem to be any comments currently present for this article. Perhaps you should be the first to start a discussion for this thread? Even if everyone else is feeling a bit introverted, we promise to reply back!