Win 11 24H2 - WOL worked for exactly two weeks - now nothing?

Got a strange one here folks. Built this new 24H2 box on Feb 7. I have ManageEngine Endpoint Central taking care of all our endpoints.

This PC is part of a specific group (of 2 PCs) that wake at 5:10am each day and drop off to sleep at 11:00pm each evening. This schedule has been flawless since Feb 7 - Feb 21.

But starting exactly on Feb 22 - this specific machine (my machine) - decides it wants to sleep right through it's 5:10 wakeup call. I noticed this yesterday and now today.

Given that this was flawless from Feb 7-21 - all the usual WOL LAN specifics are in place. I have not gone near the network card or any of it's settings in the last 48 hrs.

Nothing odd in event log. And all I get from Endpoint Central is a "WAKE on LAN Failure" with three causes - none of which are valid.

The only other "system" related things I have done to this PC in the last 48 is to hide 6 specific events (via the Registry) from spraying my Event log with useless chatter. But this was done on Feb 19 and the system woke up correctly on the 20th.

AND - I decommissioned an old server and brought a new one online on Feb 21 - which did involve some minor router work (adding a new DHCP reservation AND a reboot). But I did nothing to my specific machine.

Anyone have an idea what is going on here? Maybe it's time for a Network Reset?

S

Can you wake the device from another device on the same subnet?

pseymour said:

Can you wake the device from another device on the same subnet?

Click to expand...

In a test 30 minutes ago - I put my problem PC into Standby manually. Indicator flashing on the top of the case - and it was sleeping.

BUT - when I logged into the Endpoint Central console from another PC (on our one and only subnet) - and went to the System area to check status - the console was telling me this machine was still "live". "Live" on this system has yellow status indicator meaning the system is "up". Yet this one was sleeping.

Then I went to the Wake On Lan area and tried a manual wakeup (clicking Wake Up Now). Nothing happened after 3 minutes - which is very odd. Then I went to the Remote Shutdown area and clicked on Standby for this machine - like 2 seconds later - the machine WOKE UP and proceeded to display the logon screen.

SO inexplicably - this machine is getting it's WOL tokens backwards. Giving it a Standby - wakes it up. And hitting Wake Up now - puts it into Standby. Bizarre.

Minutes ago - I restarted the entire VM server that Endpoint Central sits on and will try this sequence again. Something is seriously out of wack here.

S

Ok - my second test confirms that this PC can be forced into Sleep mode normally (via Endpoint Console) or via the Endpoint Central app (iPhone). But it suddenly cannot be woken up.

A little more backgrounder - this box uses the ASUS ProArt Z490-Creator 10G motherboard AND I am using the included ASUS Hyper 10G (PCIe) based network card. This a Realtek based card and the driver configuration (Power Management) has all the usual suspects on and running correctly for WOL - just as it has since I built this thing on Feb 7. And - this card did it's wake/sleep cycle correctly for exactly two weeks.

I just poked around in the BIOS and cruised to the APM section and there was an interesting option in there "Power On By PCI-E" that is (and has been since Feb 7) set to disabled.

What is interesting about this option is - in the description below it states:

"Enable or disable the wake-on LAN function of the onboard LAN controller OR other installed PCI-E LAN cards".

Now - as stated - this control has been disabled since Feb 7. But this Hyper 10G Lan card - IS a PCI-E LAN card. Do I need to switch this option to Enabled perhaps?

I find this very strange since this PC woke/slept normally - until 2 days ago - with this control set to Disabled to whole time.

I will switch it to Enabled and try again.

S

Update - after trying about 20 different things including swapping OUT the PCI-e card and reverting back to the onboard Intel NIC - and then doing a multitude of network reset type activities - including an obscure reference to clearing the ARP cache - this thing simple works again as of this morning.

In all my testing yesterday (3 hrs worth) - even AFTER making all the changes above - I could easily get the machine to sleep on command - but no amount of waiting or trying or prodding or tweaking could even get it to wake - on command.

I walk into the studio this morning - coffee in hand - and there it is - up and ready to take on the day. Checked Event viewer and it snapped awake as scheduled at exactly 5:10am.

As happy as I am this is working again - it is very frustrating to not know what suddenly made this work (OR what broke it in the first place). Will now simply leave it.

Thanks for the comments.

S

I would run the sleep report and see if anything odd shows up there.


Also, does the machine support modern standby?

SonicMojo said:

As happy as I am this is working again - it is very frustrating to not know what suddenly made this work (OR what broke it in the first place). Will now simply leave it.

Click to expand...

I have always found wake on lan to never be as consistent as I like......