Wake a sleeping PC from anywhere

Remotless can wake a PC that is asleep, hibernating or shut down, so you can connect to it without anyone in the office pressing the power button.

How it works

Every Remotless PC tells our server which network it is on. When you click Wake up in your dashboard, another Remotless PC of your company that is online in the same office network sends the wake signal (a Wake-on-LAN "magic packet"). The sleeping PC starts and turns green in your dashboard, usually within one or two minutes.

You change settings only on the PC you want to wake. The PC that stays on needs nothing special: just Remotless 1.5.4 or newer, logged in to your company. Nothing needs to change on your router: the wake signal stays inside your office network.

What you need

• Remotless 1.5.4 or newer on the PC you want to wake, and on at least one other PC in the same office that stays on (for example a reception PC or a small server).
• Both PCs logged in to your company in Remotless, so they appear in your dashboard.
• The PC you want to wake must have been online once with 1.5.4, so it could report its network card.
• A network cable on the PC you want to wake. Most PCs and laptops cannot be woken over Wi-Fi.

Set up the PC you want to wake (one time)

1. Turn on Wake-on-LAN in the BIOS or UEFI

Restart the PC and open its setup, usually with Delete, F2 or F10 while it starts. Find the option called Wake on LAN, Power On by PCI-E or Resume by LAN (the name depends on the maker: Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS and others), turn it on, then save and exit.

2. Allow the network card to wake the PC in Windows

1. Open Device Manager and expand Network adapters.
2. Open your wired network card, for example "Intel Ethernet" or "Realtek PCIe GbE".
3. On the Power Management tab, tick Allow this device to wake the computer and Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer.
4. On the Advanced tab, set Wake on Magic Packet to Enabled. If you see Shutdown Wake-On-Lan, enable it too.

3. Turn off Fast Startup (to wake a PC that is shut down)

Fast Startup can stop a shut-down PC from waking. Open Control Panel → Power Options → Choose what the power buttons do, click Change settings that are currently unavailable, untick Turn on fast startup and click Save changes. Waking from sleep works without this step.

4. Let Remotless report the network

Install Remotless 1.5.4 or newer, log in with your company account, and leave the PC online for a minute.

Wake a PC

1. Open your dashboard.
2. Next to the sleeping PC, click Wake up. The button shows Waking… while the signal is sent.
3. Wait a minute or two. The PC turns green when it is online, and you connect as usual.

If the button is greyed out, hover over it to see why: usually no other Remotless PC of your company is online in that office, or the PC needs the newer version.

Test it

Put the prepared PC to sleep (Start → Power → Sleep), wait a minute so the dashboard shows it offline, then click Wake up. When that works, try the same from shut down.

Troubleshooting

• Nothing happens: check the BIOS setting first (step 1): it is the most common missing piece. Then check the network card settings and that the PC uses a cable.
• It wakes from sleep but not from shut down: turn off Fast Startup (step 3) and enable Shutdown Wake-On-Lan on the network card.
• The button is greyed out: keep another Remotless PC of your company online in the same office, and make sure both run 1.5.4 or newer.
• Different buildings or networks: the PC that sends the signal must be on the same local network as the PC you wake.

Still stuck? Contact us.