I am trying to implement wake on lan on a Dell Inspiron 15r (5521) laptop running Ubuntu Server. I believe that the laptop is indeed receiving the packets (at least when it is on), but I think that the network card is not maintaining power after the system has been shutdown by running:


I am able to wake the laptop up from sleep (suspend mode). Also, there is no option in the BIOS for wake on lan. I have contacted Dell though, and they told me that it should still work. I believe that the card is connected via PCI. Is there a way to ensure that the NIC will have power once the system is shutdown?

Welcome to LQ!

Please install ethtool if you don't already have it.
Then tell us the outputs of the following commands

I already have it. In my case it's p2p1 though, not eth0. Here's the output of the first command:
Here's the output of the second:

These results look good.

But WOL also needs to be enabled in the BIOS, I know you said but I think you might need to look harder: it might be called "PCI Power up", "Allow PCI wake up event" or "Boot from PCI/PCI-E". according to the useful WOL archwiki here

Please take another look in your BIOS settings, make changes one at a time, keeping notes.

You'll probably know you have the right setting when you can see a light next to your ethernet socket even when the machine is "powered off".

Also, on my system, I have to be root when I send the WOL magic packet. Otherwise, it just doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I don't think the option exists in the BIOS for this machine. It's running InsydeH20 Setup Utility, the version is A14. Here is a list of the 5 menus and the options therein:

1. Main
   • System Time
   • System Date
   • *various greyed out info*
2. Advance
   • Intel(R)SpeedStep
   • Virtualization
   • Integrated NIC
   • USB Emulation
   • USB Wake Support
   • Sata Operation
   • Adapter Warnings
   • Function Ket Behavior
   • Miscellaneous Devices
     • External USB Ports
     • USB Debug
3. Security
   • Admin Password
   • System Password
   • HDD Password
   • Password Change
   • Computrace
4. Boot
   • LEGACY BOOT: (greyed out)
   • UEFI BOOT:
   • Secure Boot
   • Load Legacy Option Rom
   • Boot List Option
   • Add Boot Option
5. Exit

When I looked up InsydeH20, I saw a lot of links about "unlocking hidden settings." Threads like that didn't seem too promising though.

Since it's a laptop, there is no light by the port unfortunately.

Needing to be root is interesting, but I am sending the magic packets from a Windows system and it worked from sleep mode. So that probably isn't it.

InsydeH20
Ugggh! I had that BIOS once, and struggled with it. It seemed to hate linux. It was on a Sony.

Anyway I see a useful setting under USB wake support. Try enabling that. It might also power your NIC
Anything under "Integrated NIC"?

Boot.... "Boot list option"?

"load legacy option ROM"? - I am pretty sure you have to disable "secure boot" for this to be enable-able.

It's there on my laptop (Lenovo, I have learned).

I've tried USB Wake Support. Unfortunately, it didn't help, it's only for mouse and keyboard, etc...

There's no sub-menu for Integrated NIC. It can either be enabled or disabled. I have it set to enabled.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's a light, it's a dell though, not a Lenovo.

I feel like there must be a way to keep the NIC powered after a shutdown. If it's working in sleep mode, that must mean that the NIC is powered in sleep mode. Is there a way to modify some power settings or power states such that the NIC will still have power after a shutdown?

Sorry we aren't making much progress.

As far as I can remember, the last time I encountered an InsydeH20 BIOS I set it to boot to "legacy boot", but getting it to do this was quite difficult as that BIOS hides settings unless you know some magic keystrokes, which I have, of course, now forgotten. That Sony laptop went to the dump some years ago.

It's stupid, I know.

Maybe a search on linux InsydeH20 wake on lan BIOS or similar will help you.

I am running Debian 8 on most of my PCs. Maybe try booting a live-CD of that and see if that works for your WOL needs.

Best wishes.

It's okay. I really appreciate your help. No one else has really responded on any other forums.

The option to do legacy boot is available in my BIOS. It is not currently enabled however. Would that somehow help with WOL?

There are various modded BIOS available to unlock all the settings in InsydeH20 BIOS. I'm going to make a thread on Bios-mods to see if any of these mods would reveals setting helpful for WOL.

I called Dell to find out if this was possible. It seems there's no way to set the laptop to keep power to the network card after an S5 shutdown. Such functionality is only available in their enterprise systems. The fact that you can wake from sleep mode is the best work around I can find.

Thanks for the follow-up.
It looks like wake from sleep is the only option that is available to you.

i would like to know if these would work both for Ubuntu and Linux Lite?



i'm planning to do on it as i'm interested to learn about the network stuff

I had this issue with a RTL8111 chip on a ga-970 mainboard where the network adapter lost power in power down. Mine also didn’t have power in suspend. I finally resolve it by toggling the bios ERP feature which explicitly says it will disable wol when enabled. It wasn’t enabled, but enabling it toggled some of the other options and wol started working as it should after I toggled ERP back to disable and once again enabled PME wakeup. One thing to look for is you should see an activity light on the modem for that machine, if the Ethernet still has power.

Be real, be sober.