How to start a computer

Hi all

Does anyone know of a relatively cheap solution to start a computer running vvvv automatically.

I have been using the bios to have the computer start by itself before, but I would it seems that this feature is not in all bios’es and the bios battery might run out.

I have been looking at using the dd-wrt firmware for routers to do this, but the way it needs to be set up to send WOL packets at a certain time scares me a bit. it can sen out WOL packets at regular intervals quite easily, but no option for sync’ing these with time of day.

I am thinking that I am not the first one to want this so I can’t help thinking that such a think must exist.

I am thinking about a little router like device with ethernet that quite easily can be setup to send commands over ethernet.

I know there are DIY solutions, but I would like to have a plug and play solution I can trust will do what it is told everyday.

please feed info :)

-sunep

wake on LAN maybe?
the problem that you actually need second computer to wake up first one…
try checking some utills…

Yes, WOL makes perfect sense, but I would like to have it not being a full computer running vvvv or something similar. I just want a little box that use very little power

You can send WOL packet from mobile phone or arduino. Also you can power on your pc from keyboard. Just check bios.

As you already mentioned, most Mainboards/BIOS have an option to wake the computer at a certain time, most likely called “Wake on Alarm” or something similar. I´d go for this . In case the BIOS battery runs out WOL won´t work either.

You could also set the BIOS to “Power on after Powerfail” and use an “intelligent Power Distribution Unit” that is programmable and accessible via Network or just a cheap timer switch to power up the computer (VVVV would be used to savely power it down before turning off the power).

Another possibility: rewire the computer´s power button to some kind of relais that is in turn connected to an arduino or something similar that runs a simple program to switch it.

hehe better just add needle so it never turns of haha ;]

This is not the cheapest way but i had good experieneces with remote power switches like http://www.leunig.de/_en/_pro/remote_power_switches.html
Probably there are some cheaper ones out there.

I’ve used timer swiches, the kind you run lights off at home, to turn off the power after everything had shut down and then switch it on in the morning with an auto on on power fail in the bios, worked fine…

Guys,
how can I send a WOL package from v4 to turn on some pc? I found WOL module made by @tonfilm)) in this list ((modulesindetail but i can’t download it from nowhere.

Any suggestion?

You can get it here

you can give my solution a try, if you want to.

iirc it worked really fine, but the bios settings may be really annoying on some mainboards. so there’s a lot of logging stuff in there, that you can uncomment.

if this is working for you, too, i can push that one into the addonpack

NetworkWOL.rar (18.0 kB)

looks good and works well now.

did clean up a little and added a broadcast address field.

NetworkWOL.zip (3.0 kB)

@velcrome: I tried your plugin but it doesn’t work for me. My set up it’s ok because if I use an external application with the same data (MAC address, IP address and UDP port) all works fine.

Did you succesfully test it? Any suggestions?

it really depends on the address part.

have a look at the subnet mask of your local network. for example if it is 255.255.255.0 and your local ip is 192.168.10.XXX, then your address should be 192.168.10.255

if it is 255.255.0.0 and 10.10.XX.XX respectively, then your broadcast address should be 10.10.255.255

the 255 part tells the network that it is a broadcast.

@velcrome: yep, now it works! I put the IP address in the broadcast address pin, my mistake. Thanks for the help and for sharing!