Wake-on-lan only works so many times

Posted by Chance on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Chance
Published on 2010-10-25T18:28:11Z Indexed on 2011/02/07 23:27 UTC
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I have Wake-on-lan configured on my Windows XP machine so that the computer will wake up from Standby. Waking the computer from Standby via network traffic seems to work a certain number of times, say 4 or 5, then it stops working. If I restart the computer it seems to reset this behavior so that I can use WOL a few more times before it starts working. I use the command "wol" on my other, Linux machine with the appropriate IP address and MAC address of the card.

I looked at the network card to see if it had different lights when WOL worked and when it didn't. When it has a solid amber light where the ethernet cable connects, WOL seems to work. When it has a flashing amber light, WOL does not. It seems that the system seems to almost "shut off" the card when it falls to sleep, but I don't know if this is a function of time or number of standby/wakeups.

I have a 3Com 3c920 network card. If I look at the properties in Device Manager, I have "Allow this Device to bring the Computer out of Standby" checked. In the Advanced tab I have anything related to RWU (Remote Wake Up) enabled. I also believe I have the appropriate settings in BIOS related to Remote Wake-Up and I have tried both S1 and S3 power configurations in the BIOS. Intuitively, I would think I would uncheck "Allow the Computer to turn off this device to save power", but doing so disables the "Allow this Device to bring the Computer out of Standby" option.

Does anyone know what is happening here or if there is a way to fix it? I have an integrated network card; would getting one that goes into a slot be better?

I am running Windows XP on a Dell Optiplex GX240 with a 3Com 3c920 network card.

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