MVP WOL functionality

[bavan]

Hi,

I have set up GBPVR to work together with a Hauppauge MVP box on an old P3-700 PC. After some tweaking things are working fine so it brings me to the next step. How to automate the start & stop of my old noisy PC by using WOL as my wife asked me to put this old noisy thing somewhere in the basement as it makes to much noise in the living room. As for shutting down the PC after some time of not using it or by switching of the MVP box, the utility "PC_powermng_timer" does a great job. However switching on the PC again by using the WOL possibilities I have a problem.

The WOL on the PC is working fine and I can wake up the old PC from another PC using WOL tools but only when I use the MAC address to send out a complete WOL frame. Unfortunately a simple IP address Ping doesn't trigger the PING/ARP functionality on the WOL ethernet adapter to wake up the PC from hibernate. I even tried with 2 other WOL ethernet cards but I have always the same problem (probably due to old PCI compatibility in the BIOS of the PC and no newer BIOS can be found). Sending a specific WOL frame including the MAC address however works fine. Also from hibernate mode.

Now you might be thinking, hey this has something to do with your PC bios set up and the adapter advanced settings, APM & PME settings etc. You're right and I know about these settings and have tried multiple set ups but it seems this old PC can only be waken up when sending a real WOL wake up frame and not from a simple ping to it's fixed IP address on the DHCP server.

Now here is my question. I'm looking for a solution to wake up my old PC by switching ON the MVP box.

As mentioned before switching OFF the PC works fine by using the utility "PC_powermng_timer" but switching on again the PC by switching on the MVP box doesn't work. I've hoped that the MVP would wake up the PC when it tries to connect to the GBPVR server during the start up "Contacting Servers" phase by using the know IP address in its settings when it loaded GBPVR MVP GIU the first time it was set up. Unfortunately it doesn't and probably this is because a simple ping to the WOL doesn't wake up the PC. I need to send a real WOL frame.

I'm wondering when switching on the MVP box it is looking for the GBPVR server on the IP & MAC address as set up in the MVP box settings when it was initialised the first time (Power cable disconnect / connect functionality). If understood correctly the MVP box loads a Unix GUI from GBPVR when it is powered on the first time and during that set up you can also select the GBPVR server IP address were to connect to each time you swith the MVP ON afterwards.

So wouldn't it be possible as the MVP has the information in its set up to send out a WOL frame to the correct PC when the MVP is switched ON?
Or is there a possibility to program the MVP box or GBPVR in such a way that the MVP sends out a real WOL frame to the GBPVR PC during the startup "Contacting Servers" initialisation phase. This could then wake up my old noisy PC so we can put it somewhere downstairs.

If anyone could help or give some advice, it would be great.
Ciao.

[pz1]

I haven't done it myself yet, but some people have been successful with the mvpmc dongle. Search this forum for more info. Documentation is not yet consolidated, but it seems certainly worth the try.

[martint123]

IP addresses can't wake the machine up as in standby/hibernate as it is software that recognises an IP address. It is only the network device recognising its own MAC address that lets it send a wakeup signal to the mobo.

Also routers and dhcp servers seem to do endless "chatting" in the background that would wake it up.

I just leave mine running now.

[mvallevand]

IP addresses can't wake the machine up as in standby/hibernate as it is software that recognises an IP address. It is only the network device recognising its own MAC address that lets it send a wakeup signal to the mobo.

mvpmc stores the GBPVR server's MAC address and does use it to wake the pc.

Martin

[herrmannj]

wake-on-lan isnt done by simple sends anything to the seocific ip adress - instead a special "magic packet" is send to the mac address of the pci-card: if the card and the mobo is capable then it wakes the pc. your card and your pc is ready as you had tested with your "wol tool".

but only newer dongels are ready to send this "magic packet" to wake its "prefered server". I try'd a short search in the shspvr forum but didnt find quick which dongle-version introduced this feature. I suggest to try different dongels from the sticky dongle-version-thread.

[bavan]

Hi Guys, thanks for all the tips. I haven't played around with the mvpmc dongle yet as it appears to me that it is still under development and maybe not stable. Probably I could be mistaken as I'm not familiar with all the versions and have to base myself on what I read as comments.

Secondly I have not figured it out how to do it but I'm afraid of flashing the box with a version so that I can not return to the original Hauppauge version which works fine at the moment besides the WOL feature I'm looking for.

As for waking up a PC with IP/ARP, it works very fine on my other PC, and isn't causing any problem by network traffic. In my other PC I'm using a Realtek8169 ethernet adapter and this one is only waking up the PC if you do a real ping to the address of that PC.

Anyway IP/ARP ping is not an option for my older PC as it doesn't work from hibernate so I probably have to give mvpmc a change. As I'm not familiar with that dongle, can someone tell me which is the most stable version and whether I will keep the same menu's from GBPVR as I have at the moment.

I have looked around on the website of mvpmc but didn't figger out how to program the box with the dongle. Probably I'm reading to much information at the same time and had not enough time to get everything sorted out properly. Again my biggest concern would be how to return back to the original hauppauge version if mvpmc is not stable or not offering me the same functionality and menu's as I have today with GBPVR.

If someone has time to explain, some advice might be welcome.
Again thanks already for the feedback.

[herrmannj]

its a very easy process:

1. get a new dongle (*.bin)
Hauppauge introduced Wake-on-lan with their version MediaMVP 3.3.24257b (http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=10301.0)

mvallevand had done some excellent work in collecting hauppauge various dongles (http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27283) and in developing its own mvpmc dongle (http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=25206). download either one newer hauppauge dongle from the first thread or the mvpmc dongle. probably rename it to avoid overwriting existing dongle files (keep the *.bin extension) and place it in the gbpvr dongle directory.

Start (gbpvr-)config and chose from the mvp tab the dongle you want to use.
Then disconnect the power from your mvp - wait some minutes and power it again (gbpvr mvp server must be running). now the new dongle loads into the mvp ram. dont worry - there is no "flashing the box" or so - it simple loads the dongle into the mvp ram. therefore the dongle needs to be loadet evrey time the mvp was powered off.

I hope this helps.

[bavan]

As recommended by Herrmann I've tried out a couple of things using different Dongles version 3.3.24257b, 3.3.25032, 1.154, mvpmc0.3.3, mvpmc 20070709 without success.

As for the Hauppauge version, after extracting the .exe files I've copied the different versions of dongles into the GBPVR Dongle directory and enabled them one by one via Config GBPVR MVP tab to test it out. Ofcourse each time I've reloaded the MVP with a power OFF/ON reboot to make sure it loads the latest enabled dongle from GBPVR. Note: I did not install the full Hauppauge application as it would then conflict with GBPVR. I've only copied the original Dongle.BIN file from the Hauppauge .EXE software package.

Unfortunately not one of dongles did wake up my PC from Standby or Hibernate when powering ON the MVP using the green button so I gues it doesn't send a WOL frame to the GBPVR server PC.

Unless I'm mistaken I have not seen a setting or option to enable this functionality in a Dongle so I assume they send out a WOL by default (If they do ???) ?

Then I've monitored the reception of WOL frames on my GBPVR server with a small program WOL Monitor but it didn't detect any arrival of a WOL frames from the MVP. When I send a WOL frame from another PC it is detected correctly.

So now I'm a little bit confused. Do I need to enable something specific in a Dongle and if Yes where and how.

Anyone has a suggestion ?
Thanks.

[mvallevand]

So now I'm a little bit confused. Do I need to enable something specific in a Dongle and if Yes where and how.Anyone has a suggestion ?

I have no idea if the Hauppauge dongle does this, I've never had any success.

For mvpmc if you use the 0709 dongle that should be fine, there hasn't been any changes to the nightly since 07. The "tip" would be you must start emulation mode first and then use the Go Back to get the main mvpmc menu. To test power down your pc and re-enter emulation mode, the WOL packet should be sent to a saved MAC address.

The best way to do this is with an mvpmc command line because it lets you customize some WOL parameters. For more info on mvpmc please go to the mvpmc sub-forum.

Martin

[pz1]

Note: I did not install the full Hauppauge application as it would then conflict with GBPVR. I've only copied the original Dongle.BIN file from the Hauppauge .EXE software package.

As said earlier, I have not done this yet myself. What I understood from the threads on the mvpmc, you first have to install and run the full Hauppauge package in order to get the IP addrsss of the GBP_VR server configured. (I am a bit in a hurry, so I could not find the right thread for it) Once you have configured your MVP settings with that sofware, you can stop and disable the hauppauge services.

edit1: Well I see Martin has responded at the same time. He is the specialist.