Thread: Here's how to bring a laptop out of standby

Background: after spending many hours searching here and even posting a question about it in the Newbie section it seemed that there was no practical way to bring a laptop carputer out of Standby mode without using a docking station or soldering a wire or two to the motherboard.

I've found a solution that seems pretty practical and may have other benefits as well.

You'll need:
- A Linksys WRT54G or WRT54GS router
- Sveasoft Alchemy v1.0 Firmware link
- add a command to the router's startup to send the Wake on LAN signal

Code:

/usr/sbin/wol 00:03:25:21:47:6D -i 192.168.1.255

The Linksys router is really a mini-Linux PC and can be configured to do all kinds of things. Sending a Wake on LAN packet was trivial as was adding it to the "autoexec.bat" of the router. I don't even know what the startup file is called in whatever flavor of Linux it runs -- you don't need to know, you add it through a button in the web interface. Here's how.

From the web interface for the Linksys (once you've upgrade the firmware, which I won't go into here) click on Administration then Diagnostics then click the Run button. A new Command Shell window will open.

In the top window you can enter commands then hit the Cmd button to execute them immediately. In this case you enter the command listed above and instead of hitting the Cmd button hit the Save Startup button at the bottom and it will be done. I'd recommend you test it a few times first before committing it to the startup.

This approach has some drawbacks. The biggest is the size of the WRT54G. It's not huge, but you'd have to make space for it somewhere and provide power. There may be smaller, cheaper boxes that will do the same thing but this is the one I have and am familiar with. You could install it just about anywhere in the car as you only need an Ethernet cable to reach your laptop.

It does open other possibilities too. You can use the Linksys as your wireless adapter by using what is called Client Mode. There may be some advantages such as better signal strength, etc. Or you could potentially use it as an access point to get to your network in your car.