I have had a DMA2100 media center extender for a couple of months now.
After configuring the extender and connecting it the the PC the first time, I was not able to get the PC to sleep again.

I figured out that by changing a setting in power options allowing the computer to sleep during media sharing re-enabled the possibility of getting the PC to sleep.

The next problem that occurred was that the extender was not able to wake up the PC.
I found a solution to that problem, which I will try to describe here. It is not the best solution to the problem, but it works for me and maybe someone else could find it useful.

I installed an additional network adapter in my PC.
I connected th extender directly to the onboard network adapter (using a crossover cable) and enabled wake-on-link, i.e. whenever the link LED on the back of the extender turns on, the PC wakes up.

/Peter

Many network cards/mobos support wake-on-lan with any data packet not just a magic packet. This can usually be enabled in the BIOS. With that setting turned on, a simple ping or other connection attempt will wake up the host. I've never tried it with an extender, but the host should wake up as soon as the extender tries to connect. I have my work PC configured that way, so that I can make a remote desktop connection to it even if it's asleep.

superswiss:

Many network cards/mobos support wake-on-lan with any data packet not just a magic packet. This can usually be enabled in the BIOS. With that setting turned on, a simple ping or other connection attempt will wake up the host. I've never tried it with an extender, but the host should wake up as soon as the extender tries to connect. I have my work PC configured that way, so that I can make a remote desktop connection to it even if it's asleep.

With Media Center, will it wake from sleep if it knows it needs to record a scheduled show?

-D

dravor:

With Media Center, will it wake from sleep if it knows it needs to record a scheduled show?

-D

Yes, and it will go back to sleep once the recording finishes. At least that's what the documentation claims and all components in your system play ball. I personally believe in treating media center like a server and leave it on 24x7. I've turned on all other power settings to reduce the footprint at idle as much as possible.

Hi,

Most network cards don't support the WOP (Wake On Ping) feature and even then I doubt the Linksys extender will wake the MC pc as it starts sending out UDP packets and not ICMP packets.

I had the same issue with the DMA2200.
I wasn't able to wake up the Media Center Pc if the extender was turned on.
I tried a tool named "WakeupMce" which listens for broadcasts on port 3776 and sents a WOL packet to the MC's max address. This didn't work in my situation so I wrote a Python script to get this done.

Basically the script will startup the MC pc within 30 secs after the Extender is started up.

Requirements:
A pc/server that is always with an OS that is able to run python. (the script I wrote runs on Windows but should run on Lunix/Unix) (will test that later)

Anyone who is interested in the script, let me know. I will share some more details later.
It is able to run as a service on XP or Win Server.
You can contact me on gerard@epy-technology.nl

This seems silly. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate any and all efforts to make this work, but why bother swapping one always-on computer for another? I just wish Linksys would implement WOL already. It's only logical that the extender should wake the PC when it tries to connect to the host VMC -- and not just when it's on. 

I suppose if you have other PCs that are required to be on 24/7 it will cut your power consumption somewhat, but in my case, the VMC itself is the only "always on" PC in the house, entirely because of the extender's failure to wake it. 

---

Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1
Asus M2A-VM HDMI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (65W)
500GB SATA HDD; 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM
nMEDIAPC HTPC 500BAR
Samsung 20X DVD±R
HD HomeRun; nVidia DualTV
Linksys DMA2100; WRT600N Router
ZALMAN CNPS 8700 NT

superswiss:

Many network cards/mobos support wake-on-lan with any data packet not just a magic packet. This can usually be enabled in the BIOS. With that setting turned on, a simple ping or other connection attempt will wake up the host. I've never tried it with an extender, but the host should wake up as soon as the extender tries to connect. I have my work PC configured that way, so that I can make a remote desktop connection to it even if it's asleep.

This should work if your main VMC PC is configured correctly, My XBOX 360 when going in to an extender session will just wake the VMC PC if it is asleep. No scripts or other PC's switched on all the time, none of that business!

The MCX session does not connect first time however, I have to try 2 or 3 times to connect before the PC is awake enough for the extender to connect. That's the only issue I have with it.

The network card in the VMC PC is configured to WOL from management stations only. so it does not wake up for random network traffic.

I also have a VMC laptop and have a WOL command I can send to the main VMC PC to wake it up so I can stream media from it to the laptop as well. All in all it works. Can't see why it would be any different with a Linksys DMA MCX.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

Kid, the difference is that the Linksys extenders do not support WOL - the magic packet - and the xbox does. All of the "it doesn't wake the VMC machine" complaints are specifically because of this.

---

Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1
Asus M2A-VM HDMI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (65W)
500GB SATA HDD; 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM
nMEDIAPC HTPC 500BAR
Samsung 20X DVD±R
HD HomeRun; nVidia DualTV
Linksys DMA2100; WRT600N Router
ZALMAN CNPS 8700 NT

ACraigL:

Kid, the difference is that the Linksys extenders do not support WOL - the magic packet - and the xbox does. All of the "it doesn't wake the VMC machine" complaints are specifically because of this.

Right, I did not know that not owning a Linksys DMA. I presume Linksys are aware of this, are there any known plans for them to reolve the issue?

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

Sadly, they are making with the crickets on that particular issue.

---

Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1
Asus M2A-VM HDMI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (65W)
500GB SATA HDD; 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800 SDRAM
nMEDIAPC HTPC 500BAR
Samsung 20X DVD±R
HD HomeRun; nVidia DualTV
Linksys DMA2100; WRT600N Router
ZALMAN CNPS 8700 NT