Problem regaining VNC control after standby

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Quattro Pete

Quattro Pete

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Anyone here use VNC to remotely access other machines? I use UltraVNC, but RealVNC that I use at work is very similar. I guess they all are.

Anyway, sometimes I access my home computer when I'm away from home, but don't want to leave it on all the time. The problem is that once I put it in standby mode and then awaken it with some Wake-on-LAN Magic Packet app, I can no longer access it via VNC. I believe it has to do with the fact that WOL does not turn on the monitor/LCD, and somehow I think that VNC depends on it.

A solution would be to remotely reboot the computer so that it awakes the monitor, but I don't know of any apps that can do it over Internet. I know there is shutgui.exe and similar apps, but they only work inside a LAN, as far as I know.

BTW, this is in Windows XP Home SP2 environment.
 
I don't think VNC cares if the monitor is on or not. I have used VNC with my monitor completely off.
 
First, not to discourage you, but it is possible that your issue may not have a resolution with your current system because BIOS/Hardware/Driver conflicts that are beyond OS tweaks and remote access software choice.

As I understand it, you put the machine into either hibernation or standy locally before leaving home. Next, remotely execute the WOL magic packet, then try to connect via UltraVNC. At this point you connect, but the machine is hung and does not respond beyond the screen shown on the VNC forum thread.


1. What is the power status of you monitor during the remote session?

2. Are you able to properly connect when the target machine is waking from a powered down state--PC waking from off?

3. Do you have a local area netork at home with at least one other windows machine on it?
 
Quote:

As I understand it, you put the machine into either hibernation or standy locally before leaving home. Next, remotely execute the WOL magic packet, then try to connect via UltraVNC. At this point you connect, but the machine is hung and does not respond beyond the screen shown on the VNC forum thread.


Click to expand...

Correct. And the only way I can get it to wake with WOL magic packet is if I put that machine in standby (either by hand or remotely). If I put it in hibernate, it will not awake with WOL.





1. What is the power status of you monitor during the remote session?


Once I put the PC in standby, the monitor goes into standby as well. The monitor does not awake from standby when the WOL magicpacket is sent.

Quote:


2. Are you able to properly connect when the target machine is waking from a powered down state--PC waking from off?

Click to expand...

"Off" as opposed to standby or hibernate? No. If the machine is totally off, I cannot wake it up. I can only wake it up if it's in standby.

Quote:


3. Do you have a local area netork at home with at least one other windows machine on it?

Click to expand...

I have LAN at home, but no other windows machines.
 
All that is valuable information. If you were able to awaken the machine from off, hibernation and standby, all with the same result, I would suggest looking at the video card, video card drivers, and some OS settings. However that is not the case, and points instead to the BIOS, motherboard, PCI bus and Ethernet adapter.

Another round of questions:

1> When the PC is on, there is a light on next to the Ethernet port confirming the connection to the router. What happens to that light when the PC is put into hibernation? What happens to the light when the PC is off?

2> Is the Ethernet adapter built into the motherboard or separate on a PCI a card?

3> If it’s a PCI card, what is the brand and model?

4> Have you been through the BIOS line by line to check for a WOL enable setting?

5> Do you know the brand and model of the PC or better yet the motherboard brand and model?
 
Quote:

1> When the PC is on, there is a light on next to the Ethernet port confirming the connection to the router. What happens to that light when the PC is put into hibernation? What happens to the light when the PC is off?

2> Is the Ethernet adapter built into the motherboard or separate on a PCI a card?

3> If it’s a PCI card, what is the brand and model?

4> Have you been through the BIOS line by line to check for a WOL enable setting?

5> Do you know the brand and model of the PC or better yet the motherboard brand and model?

Click to expand...


1. The light is out in both cases.

2. The NIC is built-in. It's a notebook.

3. It's not a PCI card-type NIC, but the NIC manufacturer is Broadcom, model 440x.

4. Yeah, I've gone through the BIOS settings a few times and was not able to find any setting related to WOL.

5. Dell Inspiron 1100. No idea what the MB model is. AIDA32 just reports the motherboard as:

Code:


Motherboard ID

Motherboard Name Dell Computer Corporation Inspiron 1100


so that's basically nothing.
 
Yes it was. Quicken's billminder can play havoc with power savings as it keeps a com port open...or at least it used to.

As for VNC, I support hundreds of computers, all of them have VNC on them and no power save issues.

VNC depends on the video signal being 'on' not the monitor. VNC will work with a headless computer A-OK.

What if you leave the computer on, but shut the hard drives and monitor off after a period of time? Most M/B's nowadays consume very little power all by themselves.
 
The lights out at the Ethernet port indicates that the PC is not in a WOL ready state. If you have checked the BIOS for WOL settings and found none, it appears the PC is not WOL compliant. There is almost nothing that can be done with a laptop, if it did not leave the factory WOL compliant. But there might be a few things to try and you might get lucky.

1> Check if you have the most up to date video driver and BIOS from Dell’s website.
2> Try your question on a Dell forum. Maybe there is a specific trick for your notebook family.
3> Check if Dell makes an expansion station for your notebook that can hold a WOL compliant PCI NIC card.
4> Try a web hosted remote access product like LogMeIn
5> Try Foldershare.com if all you really need is access to your files, say from the same work machine. Foldershare is a free Microsoft service that allows you to keep dedicated folders synced between two or more PCs. I use it and it works flawlessly for this application.

From what you have described you have done everything correctly to get this working. The only reason it’s not is the PC and you really don’t have any options to alter the hardware.

Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.
 
After the computer comes out of standby mode make sure the VNC service is still running (control panel, administrative tools, services). If it's not you have to modify the service to restart after a failure. Also check the event logs for any messages (also under administrative tools). If there are any weird messages in the event log try to google them, you will be surprised what you find out.
 
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