Remote Power Up of Computer

randombar · 15-07-2008 10:53am #1

Lads, just wondering about this one, going away for a year or so and will have my comp plugged in at home and might need to log into it the odd time to get stuff off it. don't really want to leave it on for the year and kill the folks eleccy bill. I was wondering was there a way of turning the system on remotely like the PSP does with the PS3?

Thanks
Gary

tech · 15-07-2008 1:52pm

if you had VPN access and a HP low end server like a ML 115 with a RIP card you could power it up over the VPN!

I dont know is there any other way to do this on a basic pc tough ?

ressem · 15-07-2008 4:52pm

Check whether your computer bios supports Wake-On-Lan.
This is where your network card is left active, listening for a special network packet which contains the network card's MAC address repeated.
On receiving this it will ask the PC motherboard to start up.

So to activate this remotely, you would need a VPN capable router which allows the packet through, or a customised router which could send the packet.

If you go for the first approach, then there's a list of applications on the wiki for Wake-On-Lan which could be used to send the packet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN

cance · 15-07-2008 5:42pm

i dont think you will be able to use wake on lan unless you have another machine turned on at all times...

wake on lan uses broadcasts and broadcasts can not be routed.

charlesD · 15-07-2008 5:50pm

cance wrote: »

i dont think you will be able to use wake on lan unless you have another machine turned on at all times...

wake on lan uses broadcasts and broadcasts can not be routed.

Yeah you can. You can wake on lan or wan, so all the OP will need to do is have a network card that supports WOL and forward the right ports on his router.

http://www.ezlan.net/WOL.html

ressem · 15-07-2008 7:02pm

Re cance: Yeah, you're right. You can work around it with a cisco router though.

But I guess that's a bit over the top for a home setup and likely not to be available.

CharlesD's solution will work though. Similar to
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/6790

charlesD · 15-07-2008 7:42pm

ressem wrote: »

But I guess that's a bit over the top for a home setup and likely not to be available.

I don't think it is too over the top, because it really just requires a little bit of port forwarding.

I always recommend Linksys routers, which are basically Cisco routers, but almost all routers offer the port forwarding feature

BoB_BoT · 20-07-2008 12:00pm

Wake on lan is the way to go, but have you a static or dynamic IP? A static IP is easier to setup but if you have a dynamic you'll need a means to access the router if the IP changes. here's a handy guide

mukki · 22-07-2008 11:06pm

sure just bring your stuff on a portable hard drive

BoB_BoT · 23-07-2008 11:55am

jesus mukki stop giving easy solutions, this is a windows forum! We need complicated solutions to a simple problem! hehe

Joking aside, portable drives can be a pain in the hole to carry around, although what would you need that wouldn't fit on say a 4 gig flash drive? The other side to that is having to carry around the flash drive with the fear of losing it and then having no access to your data. No harm having both. (encrypt the flash drive).

Also why bother with WOL, just call home and ask them to switch it on for ya.

Remote Power Up of Computer

Comments