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If you buy a current MSI motherboard, you might encounter problems when setting up Wake on LAN (WoL). This option does not work out of the box and the settings to enable it are not clearly marked. With this article I would like to remedy the situation.

WoL is the possibility to start a switched off computer via the built-in network card. The whole thing is made possible by so-called magic packets. If these are received, the computer is switched on.


Table of Contents

Installation

In order to use Wake on LAN, the first step is to change the BIOS of your motherboard. For this you click on Settings -> Advanced -> Setup of reactivation events. There must then be the option Continuation by PCI-E device be activated.

MSI Click Bios settings for Wake on LAN
MSI Click Bios settings for Wake on LAN

Save the whole thing and restart the computer. Unfortunately, this is usually not enough to actually use WoL. Windows needs additional drivers to transmit the Magic Packets.

If it is an Intel Ethernet (LAN) adapter, as in my case Intel I211 Gigabit Network Connection, then the very first thing to do is to install a driver from the Intel website, which is not covered by the default Windows drivers.

After a successful installation, more settings can be found in the settings of the network adapter. To do this, open your LAN network adapter in the device manager. Right-click on the adapter and click Properties.

Windows Device Manager
Windows Device Manager

Now you change from the General tab to the tab Power management and check if the hook at Only Magic Packet can activate computer from sleep mode is set.

Windows Network Adapter Power Management
Windows Network adapter Power management

Next you have to go to the tab Extended to configure the new settings. The following things should be checked for activity:

  • Activate PME
  • Act. via Magic Packet
Windows Network Adapter Settings
Windows Network Adapter Settings

This may not be enough to wake the computer from sleep. You should also disable Windows Quick Start. To do this, go to the Control Panel and enter in the search Energy options button. Now click in the left bar on Selecting what should happen when power switches are pressed and sees the following window.

Windows 10 Power Options
Windows 10 Power Options

Here you have to make sure that the checkmark at Activate quick start (recommended) is not set. If it is set and the boxes are grayed out, click on the blue font Some settings are currently not available and then deletes the checkmark.


Conclusion

With these precautions, Wake on LAN should now work for your MSI motherboard! If you still have problems, don't hesitate to ask in the comments. This tutorial is suitable for Intel network adapters but also for other motherboards.

You can test the whole thing with an app on your smartphone (under Android, download Wake On Lan from the Play Store), then locate your PC by IP and save it. Now you can start the PC through your smartphone. With a VPN connection to your home network, this is also possible on the road.

The setup I am using is an MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI motherboard in conjunction with an AMD Ryzen 3700X on Windows 10.


17 Comments

Isa · 10. December 2020 at 06:10

Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of tutorial I was looking for!

Now I can finally start my PC using Alexa through the Wake On Lan (WoL) skill. Unfortunately, I can't shut down the PC like this. Does anyone know what the problem is?

Thanks already!

    Sascha Brockel · 17. April 2021 at 03:02

    Hey. Sorry for the late reply. However, I have only recently dealt with this myself. For shutdown you need something other than Wake on LAN, because then you are in running mode and have to specify quasi command line commands. This can't be triggered by some kind of wake-up command. If you have an Android device you can implement this for example via Tasker etc. with Alexa voice control. If this should be interesting I can write an article about it.

    Many greetings
    Sascha

Felix · 28. April 2021 at 21:47

Great, thanks for the detailed instructions.
Would still be happy if the method to turn off the PC is explained in another article.
Otherwise TOP explained, thank you
LG

Konrad · 6. July 2021 at 14:31

Thank you very much, I was working around for ages before because I couldn't wake one of our PCs from S5. The MSI bios and the quick boot option were the solution - thanks.

Jörg · 6. September 2021 at 22:55

Thanks for the tutorial. Unfortunately, it still does not work on my MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon board. I have run and checked everything. When I run a Wake on LAN monitor I see that it sends the Magic Packet, however the computer just doesn't wake up when I put it into power save mode, not to mention shutdown.
Even if I select "Start computer" in the Fritz!Box, it does not respond. So it must be the computer....

    Sascha Brockel · 6. September 2021 at 23:47

    Hey Jörg. I can tell you that this has nothing to do with your FritzBox. Settings there are irrelevant. Remote diagnoses are of course always difficult. But sounds to me like either something is not turned on in the BIOS or the driver is not the right one, or not configured correctly. The board is also very new and will be very similar to the board used in my tutorial. After a BIOS update I had to set everything again and was also surprised why it did not work, because I had not thought of everything. Check everything again carefully and in peace.

      Jörg · 8. September 2021 at 12:34

      Hi Sascha. Thanks for the answer. I have already checked everything a few times, now I only remain arbitrarily in the BIOS settings to change in the hope that I find something that probably disturbs and then eliminate this. What is not yet quite clear to me: Actually, the BIOS should already turn on the board after receiving the Magic Packet, because Windows may not run at all? Then the board would have to ensure even without Windows that the computer turns on when you send the package, right?

        Sascha Brockel · 8. September 2021 at 19:33

        No, not correct. Therefore, among other things, the setting in Windows for the network card that it should respond. Otherwise nothing would happen. What I'm still interested in is how you try to start Wake on Lan. Try the Wake On Lan App which is available in the Play Store if you have an Android device. It will show you all the devices on your network and you should be able to recognize the device by name. Shouldn't be the reason, but with this you can exclude another source of error. You can't change much in the BIOS, which will help. If it looks like the photo above, then everything should be correct.

          Jörg · 9. September 2021 at 11:01

          Ok. So far I have used the tool "Wake on LAN", consisting of send and receive.exe to test if the Magic Packet arrives. This works as long as Win is running. It receives the packet. But when I go into energy saving or shutdown nothing happens when sending the packet. You can also start the computer via the Fritz!Box interface, but that doesn't work either. I will try to use the Android APP. In the BIOS there is Wake over PCI-E and over LAN. Have found a tutorial at MSI and had both active, now I have to test when only one is turned on. I use the internal LAN, no network card.

          Rainbird-1 · 20. February 2022 at 09:30

          It was the same with my MSI MAG Z690 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4. You have to enable both options (waking up the PCIe devices and the LAN) and additionally the mentioned settings under Windows and it works! Also wondered. Because in the Click BIOS 5 from MSI there is the separate point that it should wake up the onboard LAN, but if only this is enabled without the PCIe devices, it did not work for me either!

Martin · 13. March 2022 at 10:32

Hey, thanks for the tutorial. It really helped me!

imicol · 7. June 2022 at 21:28

Unfortunately, this does not work at all with my new motherboard MSI MEG X570 Unify AMD X570.
In the Realtek PCIe 2.5GbE Family Controller, it looks a bit different than Intel.
Activate PME, for example, does not exist at all :<

Alex · 9. January 2023 at 14:19

Bravo 👍👍 Super tutorial 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Julian · 15. February 2023 at 08:19

Thanks for the tutorial, unfortunately it doesn't work on my 570 MoBo since I upgraded the RAM from 16 to 32 GB - very strange.

Timo · 5. September 2023 at 11:29

I can't install the intel driver, it says it can't find any network ports. The rest I could activate but still does not work

Patrick · 4. October 2023 at 16:04

Thank you very much.
The damn quick start had made life difficult for me. Besides, I was missing the Intel driver the whole time.

Michael · 31. December 2023 at 14:47

Thanks for the info about the PME, I've been looking for a solution for ages, nothing helped. Activating PME was it. But PME seems to be new, I hadn't heard of it until your article.

Many thanks and a happy new year.

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