WOL on RT-N66U

[Damir2d]

Hi guys, just bought the asus rt-n66u router and tested to do Wake on lan on my system but it wont wake up. Bios settings are set to accept it and NIC settings are also set. What is the problem, does not the WOL work?

 

[RMerlin]

Hi guys, just bought the asus rt-n66u router and tested to do Wake on lan on my system but it wont wake up. Bios settings are set to accept it and NIC settings are also set. What is the problem, does not the WOL work?

Check the network interface advanced settings in Windows's Device Manager. Make sure it's configured to be allowed to take the computer out of sleep, and to do so when it receives a Magic Packet.

Also, I've seen some switches that can interfere with WOL functionality, so that's something to be aware of if you have a switch in cascade on one of the router's ports.

 

[Damir2d]

Check the network interface advanced settings in Windows's Device Manager. Make sure it's configured to be allowed to take the computer out of sleep, and to do so when it receives a Magic Packet.

Also, I've seen some switches that can interfere with WOL functionality, so that's something to be aware of if you have a switch in cascade on one of the router's ports.

Hi RMerlin,

I installed ur latest beta firmware and check wake on pattern match enabled, wake on magic packets from power off state enabled, wake on link settings enabled and wake on magic packets enabled.

But still nothing?

I have no switch after router, cable direct from router to computer.

EDIT: Installed wireshark on the system I wanted to test and get this when I use wake on lan via asus router webpage

Mac address replaced with X but was correct
4027 37.406317000 AsustekC_xx:xx:xx AsustekC_xx:xx:xx WOL 116 MagicPacket for AsustekC_xx:xx:xx (xxxxxxxxxxxx)

 

[Zirescu]

Did you check that the network port LED's are still powered on after shutting down?

 

[Damir2d]

Did you check that the network port LED's are still powered on after shutting down?

No they are not and I have windows 8 and found this info now, hibernate and sleep works fine after testing.

Wake-on-LAN behavior
The wake-on-LAN (WOL) feature wakes the computer from a low power state when a network adapter detects a WOL event (typically, a specially constructed Ethernet packet). Behavior in response to WOL events has changed from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Windows 7:
In Windows 7, the default shutdown operation puts the system into classic shutdown (S5) and all devices are put into the lowest power state D3. Wake-On-LAN is not officially supported from S5 in Windows 7. However, some network adapters can be left armed for wake if enough residual power is available. As a result, wake from the S5 state is possible on some systems where enough residual power was supplied to the NIC even though the system is in S5 and devices are in D3.

Windows 8:
In Windows 8, the default shutdown behavior puts the system into hybrid shutdown (S4) and all devices are put into D3. Remote wake from hybrid shutdown (S4) or classic shutdown (S5) is completely unsupported. In Windows 8, NICs are explicitly not armed for wake in both the classic shutdown (S5) and hybrid shutdown (S4) cases because users expect zero power consumption and battery drain in the shutdown state. This behavior removes the possibility of spurious wakes when explicit shutdown was requested. As a result, Wake-On-LAN is only ever supported from sleep (S3) or hibernate (S4) in Windows 8.

Note that in Windows 8, hybrid shutdown (S4) stops user sessions but the contents of kernel sessions are written to hard disk. This enables faster boot.

 

[Zirescu]

Yeah, I ended up testing the behaviour as well under Windows 7 and found that I could only wake up the PC from Sleep or Hibernation but not Shutdown. Glad you found the problem to your issue.

 

[Damir2d]

Yeah, I ended up testing the behaviour as well under Windows 7 and found that I could only wake up the PC from Sleep or Hibernation but not Shutdown. Glad you found the problem to your issue.

Hi,

I reinstalled my desktop cause both had win8 and now my desktop works fine with WOL over lan and over 3g cellphone with Aicoud Iphone App. Thanks for the help, good that the cause is found so others can find info too. Keep up the good work Rmerlin

 

[RMerlin]

Hi,

I reinstalled my desktop cause both had win8 and now my desktop works fine with WOL over lan and over 3g cellphone with Aicoud Iphone App. Thanks for the help, good that the cause is found so others can find info too. Keep up the good work Rmerlin

One thing to look for is the driver used by your network interface. When I switched to Windows 8, I think I did have WOL issues too, until I downloaded the latest driver from the manufacturer's website instead of using the one that came with Windows Update. The clue was that while in sleep mode, the network interface LED wouldn't stay lit.

 

[Damir2d]

One thing to look for is the driver used by your network interface. When I switched to Windows 8, I think I did have WOL issues too, until I downloaded the latest driver from the manufacturer's website instead of using the one that came with Windows Update. The clue was that while in sleep mode, the network interface LED wouldn't stay lit.

In win8 it worked with sleep and hiberation but not with shutdown. It is due to the different state it puts the hardware in shutdown compared to win7

 

[RMerlin]

In win8 it worked with sleep and hiberation but not with shutdown. It is due to the different state it puts the hardware in shutdown compared to win7

Could be. To be honest, I never shutdown my computer and simply leave it in standby mode, so I never really tried to make it wake up while in a shutdown state.

 

[lindend]

Windows 7:
In Windows 7, the default shutdown operation puts the system into classic shutdown (S5) and all devices are put into the lowest power state D3. Wake-On-LAN is not officially supported from S5 in Windows 7. However, some network adapters can be left armed for wake if enough residual power is available. As a result, wake from the S5 state is possible on some systems where enough residual power was supplied to the NIC even though the system is in S5 and devices are in D3.

I'm running Win7 64-bit and I recently replaced a DLink DIR-655 with an N66U. My use case was complete power down (S5). Prior to the switch, WOL worked every time with the DIR-655. Since switching to the N66U (running the Merlin firmware) its random. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The only variable is the router. When it doesn't work, the # of packets sent doesn't matter. They have no effect. When its working, the first packet wakes it up.

Should/can the router influence the reliability of WOL in S5?

 

[RMerlin]

I'm running Win7 64-bit and I recently replaced a DLink DIR-655 with an N66U. My use case was complete power down (S5). Prior to the switch, WOL worked every time with the DIR-655. Since switching to the N66U (running the Merlin firmware) its random. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The only variable is the router. When it doesn't work, the # of packets sent doesn't matter. They have no effect. When its working, the first packet wakes it up.

Should/can the router influence the reliability of WOL in S5?

There are a few different methods of sending WOL packets. In my early FW releases, I was compiling and using "wol" instead of Busybox's Ether-Wake. I think there were some people who had better success with wol, and others had better success with ether-wake.

If you're willing to experiment I can send you the wol binary for you to try out through SSH, just to see if it makes any difference.

 

[lindend]

If you're willing to experiment I can send you the wol binary for you to try out through SSH, just to see if it makes any difference.

Sure, I'd be happy to try out a different wol binary.

 

[RMerlin]

Sure, I'd be happy to try out a different wol binary.

Grab it from the Misc folder:

https://www.mediafire.com/asuswrt-merlin/

Note that the syntax is different from ether-wake.

 

[lindend]

Let me just make sure I've explained myself properly before trying the new binary. I'm sending the WOL packets from my iPad and Nexus 4 (both fail when the problem happens). Will the binary help in forwarding these packets or is it just for generating WOL packets from the router directly?

 

[RMerlin]

Let me just make sure I've explained myself properly before trying the new binary. I'm sending the WOL packets from my iPad and Nexus 4 (both fail when the problem happens). Will the binary help in forwarding these packets or is it just for generating WOL packets from the router directly?

No. Any WOL packet you send from a device to a client shouldn't care which router you are using or the router's firmware, since it's simply a regular UDP packet.

wol and ether-wake are only for sending WOL packets from the router.

 

[lindend]

ok, then the binary won't help. Still scratching my head as to why WOL packets were reliable w/the DIR-655 but unpredictable with the N66U.

 

[mobidutch]

Try first creating a VPN connection to the router, and then send a WOL command directly to the IP address of the device you want to wake

I think this issue is somehow related to ARP tables, and a timeout after which the address of the device you want to wake is released from the table. That would explain why it sometimes works (e.g when you are testing WOL right after you had IP traffic for the device) and sometimes not (e.g. after device has been off for some time).

On some routers/firmwares you can manually add Unix commands to make the ARP table entry static, but I don't think that is possible for ASUSWRT. (?)

 

[mobidutch]

I can confirm that when you add a static entry to the arp table, WOL keeps working nicely, also after a reboot. I plugged in a FAT formatted 2GB USB flash drive and installed Download Master, then added my arp entry (arp -s 192.168.xxx.xxx AA:BB:CCD:EE:FF) to the end of the /opt/.asusrouter script. I then disabled Download Master again. After a router reboot, WOL over Internet works like a charm.

 

[lindend]

No. Any WOL packet you send from a device to a client shouldn't care which router you are using or the router's firmware, since it's simply a regular UDP packet.

wol and ether-wake are only for sending WOL packets from the router.

Did some more experimentation. Tried sending the WOL packet directly from the ASUS N66U to the PC. It woke up immediately. The same packet sent over WiFi (Android and iPad) won't wake up the PC.

I can send WOL packets over WiFi to other PCs on the network and they wake up fine.

Any ideas why the WOL packet would work when sent directly from the router but not via an Android or iOS app to the same MAC address?