LogMeIn - remote wakeup

Zascar

I use logmein a lot as I like to be able to get access to my computer at home when I'm in work. However I have to leave my pc on all the time. I'm concious I'm wasting a lot of money/electrictity doing this when I only use it once in a while.

I notice on my mac is says it can do remote wakeup. Can xp do this? How can I set it up does anyone know?
Thanks

bonzodog2

I think the wake-on-lan (WOL) functionality is down to the BIOS and NIC, and you prob have to have the PC in 'sleep mode'. You'll prob need to have appropriate ports forwardded on your router.Note, I haven't done this myself, this is just my guess.

Zascar

PC is Dell Dimension 5000, xp home. I wonder how I find out if it can be done?

bonzodog2

Google!
CHeck your BIOS for WOL settings, share a folder on PC#1,check you can mount network drive from PC#2 (if you have 2).Sleep pc1,try access from pc2

Raiser

bonzodog2 wrote: »

I think the wake-on-lan (WOL) functionality is down to the BIOS and NIC, and you prob have to have the PC in 'sleep mode'. You'll prob need to have appropriate ports forwardded on your router.Note, I haven't done this myself, this is just my guess.

Have you ever plugged a power cable into your PC or Laptop and noticed the link lights activate?

WOL works fine from fully powered off once its been enabled.

- Do a bit of Googling and you'll be sorted.

wolfric

Unfortunately this will not work. Logmein is a special service that works by having a client on your computer that you want to control connected to the server. It doesn't work by trying to connect directly to the computer but rather using the connection that the client on the controlled computer has set up already.

Because of this no computer will ever connect to your computer to begin with. The connection will always start FROM your computer. This means that if your computer is asleep or the hard dives are switched off, that logmein client is no longer running and the computer is no longer seen as being online and no connection will ever be sent to your computer so that it wakes up.

To save power i suggest putting it on the most power saving option there is and then editing it and making sure the computer doesn't hibernate/sleep/turn it's hard drives off. Or... you could always... not access your home computer at work.

Wake on lan is a bios setting so if you DID want to enable this (which won't help you) reboot your pc and press f12 when it starts to come on. You should find it in there somewhere if it's supported.

HOWEVER. This is kind of a work around but if you want to let's say access your home pc at a certain time. You could use the task scheduler and say "wake the computer to access this task" http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63567-power-options-sleep-mode-problems.html (however i'm not sure there's an option on xp) Or if you have a fancy bios, there are options sometimes to wake at a certain time. then set it to sleep again. If all else fails and you want to go really nuts, set up a vnc server and port forward the connection to your pc. Set the listening port to something redicliously high and obscure and set up the wake on lan settings. This works because when you access your computer you're actually sending a request directly to it instead of requiring it to make the first connection. BUT: this means that anyone can connect in (so please put up a password). Make sure your vnc server is uptodate. Here's what i use http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/download.html

Good luck

Raiser

I don't want to appear to contradict the above Poster - His reasoning is sound.

- But can anyone confirm or deny the possibility of sending a WOL magic packet from a remote site via static IP from your ISP, waking your Home PC and then have LogMe in start automatically and begin listening for a connection?

Doesn't seem like a big ask?

wolfric

that would work actually. Forget about the whole isp thing just port forward to an unused port on your pc so there's nothing listening then attempt to connect once. Give it a few mins and your computer should boot up... then go into logmein. Nice thinking. That's a lot more secure than setting up vnc.

Take down your ip from at home with something like http://www.whatismyip.com/ and then when you're at work go something like
start - > run -> telnet

Open ip port

(where ip is your home ip and port is whatever random port you chose to port forward). http://portforward.com/ Here's a site that has more information on port forwarding. It has listings for many routers with step by step instructions. The basic idea behind is that when someones connects to your ip your router discards it. It doesn't know which computer on your lan to send it to. By setting up port forwarding when someone connects to your ip on a certain port it forwards it to a specific computer (ie yours in this case).

edit: Oh yeah and have wake on lan set up in bios as well for this to work

Gadgetman496

I use Logmein to connect to a Windows 7 machine even if the machine is fully powered off.

I have never seen this on XP but since I got Win7 when I look at the machine from a remote location it say's "Power On This Machine" or something to that effect & it does power up the machine & give me access. I didn't set anything up it just worked? I'd imagine it is Win 7 related. Anyone else notice this?

wolfric

Wake on LAN only works when you are on a network connected to other LogMeIn computers. At least one of those computers must be powered on.

From logmein. So it connects to one of those computers and wakes your computer.
I'm assuming that the OP doesn't have another computer on the network that is going to remain online also