I gotta ask: 1) do you have the latest motherboard BIOS? 2) How are you sending the magic packet? 3) Do you have an actual use case or is this a "just because it is there" scenario?

I had a very similar setup many years ago (440BX and 3c905 with cable to mobo) and could never get it to work reliably.

You could power it on remotely once, but after it shut down, it couldn't be woken a second time. You had to manually press the power button. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. (OS was Windows 2000 Professional IIRC).

(I made use of this once, while overseas on holiday. I was able to power on the computer and retrieve files from FTP, but once I remotely shut it down, it stayed off until I returned.)

On the older boards I could never get WOL to work consistently or reliably either.

Only time it worked well was on servers with a dedicated RJ-45 port for remote management.

douglar wrote on 2025-04-10, 18:22:

I gotta ask: 1) do you have the latest motherboard BIOS? 2) How are you sending the magic packet? 3) Do you have an actual use case or is this a "just because it is there" scenario?

1) yes. I upgraded it using the .bin file downloaded from "the retro web" website.

2) I used 2 apps for WOL on Android (I don't know if I can write here the app URLs) and other three programs for windows, one from "nirsoft" website, one from "Aquilatech" website and another from "depicus" website. No one had turned on the PC, but I saw that the LEDs, both on Ethernet card and the switch has always blinked when I started the WOL command, from all those apps.

3) I use it with USB/IP, as a client, with puppy Linux as a server. Very reliable.

In addiction, I used in substitution of the 3com card, another card with the RTL 8139 chip, even with the WOL connector. same result as the 3com card, blinking led on WOL command, but not turning on the PC.

My experience, even working in a 'enterprise' environment, is that WOL was always hit and miss.

I've never had a setup where it worked consistently. The combination of hardware (and different hardware driver releases - e.g. the Intel Proset NIC drivers) bios settings and OS power save settings just resulted in too many variables to make it work reliably.

We had better luck with later machines setting bios scheduled power-on times (ready for students/researchers to turn up for the day). WOL not so much 🙁

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-04-11, 06:48:

My experience, even working in a 'enterprise' environment, is that WOL was always hit and miss.

I played with this in 1998/99 when I was doing some large Windows NT upgrades.

WOL worked on the prebuilt Dell & Compaq systems. I suppose that's not too surprising.

I tried recreating it at home with DIY components but didn't have any luck.
Pretty sure I was using this board: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-p2v
Here is a the network card I used ( The one that has the WOL cable attached. Lol!) https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/3com … l-pci-3c905b-tx

I was using Win98. I see comments about "Disable Fast Shutdown" when using WOL with Win98. Might be something to check.

I had VIA two systems that the time. The Apollo Pro + and a K62 MVP3 system. That's when new versions of the Via 4-1 driver were rolling out from month to month. It's not so bad now that the drivers are stable, but it was frustrating to get caught in the churn back in the day. I can't recall buying Via boards for the next 20 years after that experience.

I was also trying to overclock a Celeron 300a, so I was probably asking for trouble.

p.s. Nope, on review, I did buy one of these a couple years later-- https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-a7v133 I try to forget about the Thunderbird Athlons sometimes

I was recently gifted a NOS HP Compaq Presario tower from 2009. It's junk, but I thought it would make a decent headless server. Stick it in a cupboard and use WOL and network to access it.

It doesn't have WOL. WTF? Why would you put a NIC on a motherboard but not allow WOL?

*shakes head*

Errius wrote on 2025-04-11, 13:21:

I was recently gifted a NOS HP Compaq Presario tower from 2009. It's junk, but I thought it would make a decent headless server. Stick it in a cupboard and use WOL and network to access it.

It doesn't have WOL. WTF? Why would you put a NIC on a motherboard but not allow WOL?

*shakes head*

WOL was an enterprise focused feature. Deskpro & ProLiant? Yes. Presario? Not so much.

douglar wrote on 2025-04-11, 12:53:

WOL worked on the prebuilt Dell & Compaq systems. I suppose that's not too surprising.

So, I can't have any luck with custom PCs? Because I tried even with motherboards, not from prebuilt PCs, which have the integrated network card, and the WOL it works flawlessly.

briefsense wrote on 2025-04-11, 13:50:

So, I can't have any luck with custom PCs?

I'm just saying that back in the day when I was younger and smarter and did this stuff on a daily basis, I wasn't able to get a 3com 3C905 card to WOL with an apollo pro motherboard.

Are you running windows 98? Did you disable fast startup?

douglar wrote on 2025-04-11, 14:15:

Are you running windows 98? Did you disable fast startup?

I running windows xp professional.

But yesterday, I tried to use an HDD with windows 98, which was used on there, with same card. But same results, unfortunately.
What do you mean with fast startup?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … e7-935695f9fb22

I was thinking about this today.
I have a vague memory that it matters what PCI slot you plug the PCI NIC into.
Its something to do with IRQs. Something to do with the AGP slot too but its been so long I cant remember.

douglar wrote on 2025-04-11, 15:13:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/f … e7-935695f9fb22

Thanks for the guide.

I followed that steps, even if I use XP as I mentioned in the first post, and not 10 or 11, so it doesn't exist a function regarding the fast startup in powercfg.cpl, so I have unchecked the box regarding allowing the PC to turn off the hardware to save power, in device manager, and by unchecking this, it was automatically unavailable the next checkbox regarding allowing the hardware to wake the PC, that firstly it was checked, now it isn't anymore, until I recheck the first checkbox.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-11, 17:30:

I was thinking about this today.
I have a vague memory that it matters what PCI slot you plug the PCI NIC into.
Its something to do with IRQs. Something to do with the AGP slot too but its been so long I cant remember.

Now that you made me thinking, I had issues with this PC, in the past, which the network card seems to working only on the first PCI slot, like now. Else it wasn't revealed by the OS. I use however a video card with AGP.

If I had a system which had a NIC that recognised a WOL packet and an external WOL connector I'd use a small 8pin MCU (e.g. PIC12C509 or whatever replaced it) and have it turn the WOL signal into something that fed the motherboard power switch.

Having said that, I've always treated working WOL as a bonus.