Wireless wake up?

[Gibbo]

Hello,

Search hasn't really helped me with this topic, any clarity that anyone can provide would be most appreciated.

I currently have a wireless computer with a D-Link DWL-G510 card inside connected wirelessly to a Linksys WRT54G running third party firmware. Ideally I would like to be able to wake my computer from my SB's downstairs. I'm more thinking about waking the computer from standby / hibernation mode.

I've browsed through a lot of WoL stuff and had a play but I got the impression that this is just for a wired situation, and not a situation where the computer would still have to be running the wireless software.

Any help / info would be appreciated, even if it is just a "can't be done".

[mattybain]

Hello,

Search hasn't really helped me with this topic, any clarity that anyone can provide would be most appreciated.

I currently have a wireless computer with a D-Link DWL-G510 card inside connected wirelessly to a Linksys WRT54G running third party firmware. Ideally I would like to be able to wake my computer from my SB's downstairs. I'm more thinking about waking the computer from standby / hibernation mode.

I've browsed through a lot of WoL stuff and had a play but I got the impression that this is just for a wired situation, and not a situation where the computer would still have to be running the wireless software.

Any help / info would be appreciated, even if it is just a "can't be done".

I use WOL on my wired SC but wireless SB3's. It works well under windows but I can't for the life of me get it too work under Ubuntu.

I haven't yet managed to get WOL to work completely wirelessly, it seems to depend on whether your wirless NIC supports that feature or not

[Gibbo]

Cheers.

maybe a silly question but is WoL a wake up from off or from standby / hibernate?

[sebp]

Cheers.

maybe a silly question but is WoL a wake up from off or from standby / hibernate?

Both. Enable WOL in the BIOS and it'll power your machine on. Enable WOL in your O.S. and it'll make it leave standby.

[mattybain]

Both. Enable WOL in the BIOS and it'll power your machine on. Enable WOL in your O.S. and it'll make it leave standby.

Is that entirely true? at least on my machine I need to set my BIOS so the machine is capable of waking up and then the WOL packet will make my computer wake up from either standby or hibernate depending what I have set it do in Windows Home Server.

[sebp]

Is that entirely true?

I can't see where what you describe differs from what I've explained.
As far as I can tell, an O.S. can't get out of sleep/hibernate modes by itself since it's not running on the CPU anymore. It makes sense that it has - before entering sleep/hibernate mode - to ask the BIOS to wake it up when something special occurs (key stroke, mouse move, incoming dial on serial port, WOL frame coming). It's all about IRQs handling. And this is where your need to set it up on the O.S. side.

There are some limits to this anyway, since not all devices keep power when the system gets off or enters sleep/hibernate mode. Most PCs will be able to wake up from a WOL frame coming to their wired NIC, but I can't think of any that could do the same wirelessly.

I could be wrong, anyway.

[mattybain]

I can't see where what you describe differs from what I've explained.
As far as I can tell, an O.S. can't get out of sleep/hibernate modes by itself since it's not running on the CPU anymore. It makes sense that it has - before entering sleep/hibernate mode - to ask the BIOS to wake it up when something special occurs (key stroke, mouse move, incoming dial on serial port, WOL frame coming). It's all about IRQs handling. And this is where your need to set it up on the O.S. side.

There are some limits to this anyway, since not all devices keep power when the system gets off or enters sleep/hibernate mode. Most PCs will be able to wake up from a WOL frame coming to their wired NIC, but I can't think of any that could do the same wirelessly.

I could be wrong, anyway.

No you are right, I miss read your post, sorry for that.

[KeithL]

You cannot WOL wirelessly.

If you must run wirelessly you can set up an Apple laptop or mac mini to run silently with just the drives spinning down when inactive without the need for cooling fans for the main processor.

Keith

[radish]

You cannot WOL wirelessly.

Well you can, but WOL compatible wireless adapters are a rarity. The easiest way to do it to use an external bridge (like an SB!) and then a regular WOL-capable ethernet card.

[Gibbo]

Cheers for the responses folks.

unless I trail a cable through my entire house I can't really wire the computer in unforunately, and I really don't think the misses would understand if I tried to justify buying a third SB.

[bpa]

Homeplug (ethernet over power) can work well as an alternative to or in conjunction with wireless.

[radish]

Cheers for the responses folks.

unless I trail a cable through my entire house I can't really wire the computer in unforunately, and I really don't think the misses would understand if I tried to justify buying a third SB.

Cheap wireless bridges can be had for in the region of $50 usually, not an ideal solution obviously but a possibility.

[tamanaco]

Well you can, but WOL compatible wireless adapters are a rarity. The easiest way to do it to use an external bridge (like an SB!) and then a regular WOL-capable ethernet card.

radish, can you point me to one of these "rare" WOL compatible wireless adapters? Last time I checked, most wireless adapter can wake up a "wired" Ethernet adapter, but I never came across a Wireless adapter that can be awaken wirelessly using WOL. My understanding was that "security" and power requirements become show stoppers for fully wireless WOL. Having a wireless adapter in session with an Access Point without security makes no sense. A wireless adapter in a continuous "secured" session with an AP waiting for the magic packet consumes a lot of power and defeats the power savings that are the main reasons to hibernate or to standby. Also, having a sessionless wireless adapter open waiting for WOL packet to then set an ad hoc connection is also not something I'd recomend. Anyone walking around with a wireless adapter will wake up your system. The power requirements of the radios of the current breed of wireless adapters is also too high to run on a "battery-powered" system for prolonged periods of time. True-Wireless system (no wired net and no wired AC) have limitations.