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I currently have wake-on-LAN enabled and it works, but for some reason my Windows 7 laptop only allows me to turn it on if I also have the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option enabled on my NIC.

Here is what it looks like in the NIC settings:

enter image description here

the option to turn on wake-on-LAN is greyed out unless I also check the "Allow the computer to turn off this device" option.

The problem is that if I enable that option, the NIC goes to sleep after an amount of time and will stop responding to wake-on-LAN requests.

Is there any way to enable wake-on-LAN without having to enable the "Allow the computer to turn off this device" option?

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  • 1
    You could in theory use a different network adapter. Looks like the one you have won't work like the way you want it do.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 18:52
  • It looks like the driver is broken. My bet is that they intended to only allow you to enable WoL if that option was unchecked and got the logic backwards.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 20:05
  • My Realtek NIC driver does the same thing (uncheck box one and the others go grey). Here's thread full of people with the same deal: answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/…
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 20:11
  • Unless someone prove me wrong, that's just how it was designed to work. Apparently Windows requires the device power saving option to be checked in order to enable its power management capabilities. An article that might be of interest: Power Management for Network Devices in Windows 7. Eventually the issue could be worked around or mitigated, though. What's the laptop exact model? What's the BIOS version? Is Windows 32-bit or 64-bit? What's the current NIC driver version? Which values are its advanced settings set to?
    – and31415
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 20:51
  • It's an Acer Aspire 6920G, Windows 7 64bit, the NIC is listed as Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114, on driver version 1.0.0.18. Under advanced settings, "Shutdown Wake Up" is enabled, and "Wake Up Capabilities" is set to "Magic Packet".
    – deewhy
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 21:47

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I don't think it's a bad driver issue, but you could still try to change the advanced power saving options in Control Panel. Pick a plan and edit it in advanced mode (Wireless Adapter Settings > Power Saving Mode > Maximum Performance):

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