Asus A7N8X-E Wake-On-LAN Problems

I have a hand-built GNU/Linux PC with an Asus A7N8X-E motherboard. I want to be able to awaken it over the network using the Wake-On-LAN feature. So far I have only had limited success.

Configuration

I have enabled Wake-On-LAN in the BIOS via the two relevant settings:

Power Up on PCI Device: Enabled. The manual says this must be enabled in order for Wake-On-LAN to work from soft-off mode.
Power Button < 4 Sec: Soft-Off. If you depress and release the power button for less than four seconds, the machine is left in soft-off state, with the Ethernet card still watching for a Wake-On-LAN frame to arrive that includes its MAC address.

Wake-On-LAN Application

On another Linux PC I have installed the wol application which is available on SourceForge. I invoke it with a command-line like this:

wol "00:11:2F:4E:D2:F1"

Results

If I turn on the PC with the front power switch, then power it off again with a quick press of the front power button before the Linux boot process begins, I can use Wake-On-LAN. When I use the wol program, the PC with the Asus motherboard starts up, as requested. So the wol program works and using the front power button puts the PC into a soft-off state.

However, if I turn off the Asus computer using the shutdown command under Linux, later use of the wol program fails to awaken it. I have also tried two other Wake-On-LAN programs (wakelan and ether-wake) with the same results -- it won't turn on from whatever state it is left in by shutdown.

The ethernet port is still active -- I can see its link light is on, as is the link light on the corresponding switch port. But for whatever reason it doesn't handle the packet, can't signal the motherboard, or the motherboard doesn't start the boot sequence.

Last modified on 25 Mar 2005 by AO