[OPLINTECH] Scheduled Turn-On of PCs in the morning?

[Chad Neeper]

Chad beat me to the punch, but to the best of my knowledge, you have two
options: WOL and what Chad mentioned in the firmware config. Many computers
have a scheduled wake from sleep option. The downside to that second
method, however, is that it's configured on each individual computer, while
WoL is a Magic Packet sent from a central location (from which you can
configure any number of computers to wake up on whatever schedule and
change the time/day(s) quickly and centrally.

I use WoL at many of my libraries to wake the patron computers at
appropriate times/days. It works pretty well most of the time with the
caveat that on occasion a random computer may not wake correctly and may
require a finger-poke. To work correctly (on a Windows computer, at least),
you need to ensure that 1) the firmware is configured correctly to enable
WoL, 2) the NIC driver in Windows is configured to leave the NIC in the
correct state at shutdown, and 3) that the Magic Packet is being sent from
a computer on the same subnet as the computer(s) you're trying to wake.
(There are other, routable options for waking computers too, so I think
that's where some of your variations come in.)

On a rare occasion, an improper shutdown may cause 2) to not happen
correctly and can cause a computer to not wake correctly. That's where the
finger-poke comes in. But the staff usually seem to be able to handle it
and it self-resolves at the next use and correctly shutdown.

The WoL usually gets paired with auto-shutdown in the evenings using an
unrelated method. Generally, the problems come in the form of complacency
when the staff get used to ignoring the patron computers and something
doesn't happen correctly (most often around a DST/ST time change.)

It's not hard to implement WoL. Give it a shot!
2 cents, good luck!

______________________________
*Chad Neeper*
Senior Systems Engineer

*Level 9 Networks*
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

*Full IT/Computer consulting services -- Specialized in public libraries*


On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 2:20 PM Nathan Eady via OPLINTECH <
oplintech at lists.oplin.org> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I've had a request, that I set up the computers here to turn themselves
> on in the morning shortly before people start to arrive.  My first
> coherent thought on the matter (after the initial "say WHAT?") was that
> maybe I could possibly make it happen with Wake On LAN somehow, but I'm
> discovering that despite how old WOL is, there's a disturbing amount of
> variety, from one computer to another, in terms of whether and to what
> extent the firmware implements WOL.  (Most of our computers use onboard
> LAN, as opposed to expansion-slot NICs.)
>
> So now I'm wondering if there's some more reliable mechanism, that I'm
> not aware of, to automatically power-on computers that have been shut
> down for the night.
>
> --
> Nathan Eady
> Galion Public Library
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