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Can My PXI or PXI Express System Be Turned On Using An Ethernet Connection?

Hardware: PXI/CompactPCI>>Controllers

Problem:
I am using a PXI system and would like to know if it is possible to turn on or wake up the system using a remote computer over ethernet? If so, how would I accomplish this?

Solution:
The ability to turn on or wake up a computer remotely using an ethernet connection is referred to as Wake ON LAN or (WOL). For WOL to be possible the computer being used must have a ethernet card that utilizes the a 5 volt standby rail. This 5 volt standby rail stays active even after the computer shuts down which allows the Ethernet controller to stay powered on in a low power state to monitor network traffic. When the wake up message also known as the "Magic Packet" is sent to the ethernet controller the #Wake signal to the controller which powers on the chassis.

This feature is defined in the PXI Express Specification and not available for PXI. So you must use a PXI Express controller and chassis for WOL to work.

To configure WOL you need only enable the correct ethernet driver features in the OS. It is possible to setup WOL for Mac and Linux but this article will only cover Windows:

The PXI-8105 and PXI-8106 controllers are built off the INTEL chipset and have the Intel Pro 1000 Ethernet controller. The following steps illustrate how to configure the INTEL Pro for WOL.

  1. Go to Device Manager
  2. Right click the Ethernet Controller and choose Properties



  3. Go to the Advanced Tab:
    1. Select Enable PME
    2. Confirm that the Value field is set to Enabled


    3. Select the Wake On Settings and change the Value to Wake on Magic & Directed


       
  4. Exit out of Properties and shut the controller down.
  5. If the ethernet controller is configured correctly the ethernet lights on the front panel of the PXIe controller will be active when powered down.
PXIe-8130
The 8130 is built off the NVIDIA Chipset/Ethernet controller so the options appear different but are basically the same.
  1. Navigate to Device Manager and select the ethernet controller Properties 
  2. Select the Advanced tab and click on the Wake on Magic packet  from the Property box
  3. Confirm the Value field is set to Enabled




  4. Exit out of Properties and shut the controller down.
  5. If the ethernet controller is configured correctly the ethernet lights on the front panel of the PXIe controller will be active when powered down.

Following the configuration the network card in Windows the attached LabVIEW program can be used to turn on the computer by sending the Magic Packet.  The WOL feature for both of these ethernet chipsets accept a magic packet of 6 bytes of all 1's followed by 16 repetitions of the MAC address for the controller you want to wake. You need to broadcast a UDP packet with this information to the controller or subnet the controller is on. The attached LabVIEW 8.5 example will work with any PXIe-8105/6 or PXIe-8130 controller:

Caveats
     
  • If the GigE Vision Adapter driver is installed on the controller the Wake ON LAN settings will not be available in the device properties. To enable WOL support the INTEL driver will need to be reinstalled. This can easily be done by going into the device properties on the ethernet card and selecting Roll Back the Driver or the INTEL ethernet driver can also be downloaded from the FTP Support Site and reinstalled on the controller.
    •    
  • There are many issues with broadcasting packets if you are not in the same subnet.


Related Links:
PXI Express Chassis and Controllers

Attachments:
WakeOnLan.vi

Report Date: 06/26/2008
Last Updated: 07/29/2008
Document ID: 4MPHJEQX

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