Awake FAQ

What is “Wake on LAN”? – With Wake on LAN you can wake your computer from sleepmode if your network-card supports this function. The idea is: Whenever your computer is set to sleep/power-safe-mode, it powers down everything except the network-adapter. The network card listens via the network-cable for a – so called – “magic paket” that contains the MAC-Address of thenetwork card. If it receives it, it wakes up it’s computer.

What is a MAC-Address? – MAC is the abreviation for Media Access Controller and that is another name for network adapter or card. It’s the unique identifier of your network card. This ID is used instead of the IP-Address or something else because if your computer is asleep it is not logged in to the network – hence it has no valid IP-Address.

Where do I find the MAC-Address? – On the Mac go to System Preferences->Network->Built-in Ethernet->Advanced->Ethernet: Ethernet ID. On Windows (ugh) click Start->Run and enter “cmd” to open a shell-window. Then type in “ipconfig /all”. A lot of text will appear and the MAC-Address is here called Physical Address. On either system it’s in the form of 11:22:33:44:55:66.

Why isn’t it working with my computer? – For Wake on LAN to work there need to be some things arranged.

First you have to check the MAC-Address again, make sure you use the MAC-Address of your Ethernet-Card and not the Airport-Card!
then you have to make sure that your network-card supports Wake on LAN and that it is enabled! On the Mac you can turn on/off WoL in Sytem Preferences->Energy Savings->Options. Select the checkbox labeled “Wake for Ethernet network administrator access.”. On Windows you have to check the manual for your network-card or have a look at the BIOS. But only ONLY change something in the BIOS if you know what you are doing!
Your computer has to be connected via cable to your network! It won’t work with WLAN!
Make sure your computer and your iPhone/iPod are on the same network. For this reason there is the IP-Adress of your iPhone noted on the Awake-Screen below the red button. This address has to be the same as your computers for the first three parts and has to be different in the last, righ-most part of the address.

Where do I find the IP-Address of my computer? – On the Mac go to System Preferences->Network->Built-in Ethernet, on Windows (ugh again – go get a Mac) click Start->Run and enter “cmd” to open a shell-window. Then type in “ipconfig/all”. A lot of text will appear and the IP Address is listed as the fourth value in the table.