How to Remotely Turn a PC On and Off

Wake On LAN allows you to remotely wake your computer from a lower power state using a magic packet. To start using Wake On LAN, you must first enable it in your UEFI firmware settings and configure your Ethernet network adapter settings. Once done, you can use a WOL utility to turn on your remote computer using another computer, your Android phone, or your iPhone.

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If you are new to WOL on Windows, here is how to enable and set up Wake on LAN on your Windows 10 and 11 running computers.

1. Configure UEFI Firmware Settings to Enable Wake-on-LAN

Although most modern Ethernet network adapters support Wake-on-LAN, many don't have the feature enabled by default. For a PC to spring into action when it receives a magic packet, you might have to enable the feature in your PC's BIOS/UEFI menu and your network adapter's settings within Windows 10.

You can enable Wake On Lan on a supported computer by accessing the UEFI firmware menu or BIOS. The steps below are for an HP PC, so they may be a little different depending on your computer manufacturer. Usually, though, you'll find it under the networking or power-related options.

To access the UEFI firmware menu or BIOS, click the power button in the bottom right corner of the login screen. Then press and hold the Shift key, and click Restart. If prompted, click Restart Anyway. Wait for your computer to restart into the Windows Recovery Environment.

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Under Choose an option, go to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings. Then, click Restart to enter UEFI (BIOS).

In the BIOS Setup Utility, open the Configuration tab. Using the down arrow key, go to and select S3/S4/S5 Wake On LAN. Then, hit Enter and choose Enabled. Finally, press F10 to save and exit setup.

2. Configure Wake on LAN Settings for the Ethernet Adapter

Boot into Windows as usual after enabling Wake-on-LAN on your target PC's BIOS/UEFI. We now need to configure the Ethernet adapter settings to enable the Wake On Magic Packet option.

To start, open the Device Manager. If you're on Windows 10/11, press Windows key + X and run it from the OS's administrative tools quick menu. Alternatively, you can press the Windows key or click on the Start menu and type Device Manager to find it.

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1. Expand the Network adapters category and double-click on your network adapter (or right-click on it and choose Properties).
2. Move to the Advanced tab and check the entries under Property. Locate the entry for Wake on Magic Packet and enable it.
3. While in the network adapter's properties, go to the Power Management tab. Ensure that Allow this device to wake the computer and Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer are enabled.
4. Finally, you'll need this PC's IP address to wake it up remotely. To find your IP address, press Windows key + R, type cmd, then click OK to run Command Prompt. Type ipconfig in the Command Prompt and press Enter to run the command. The address you need will be the IPv4 Address.

3. Disable Fast Startup

You will also need to disable fast startup to ensure that your Ethernet adapter continues to work even when the system is in a low-power state.

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1. Type "Control" in the search bar to open the Control Panel.
2. Go to Power Options.
3. In the left pane, click Choose what closing the lid does.
4. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable.
5. Under Shutdown settings, uncheck Turn on fast startup, and save your changes.

4. Wake Up a Computer Remotely Using WakeMeOnLan

To turn a PC on remotely, you need a way to send the magic packet to it. Many remote control solutions can wake up your PC. However, we don't need complete remote control to simply wake up a PC. One of the easiest ways to do so is to use NirSoft's free WakeMeOnLan tool.

1. Download WakeMeOnLan.
2. The tool is a portable app that doesn't need installation. To use it, simply extract the contents of the ZIP archive into a folder and copy the path to the folder.
3. WakeMeOnLan will scan your network for all connected devices when you run the tool. Select a device from the list to send the magic packet, and then choose Wake Up Selected Computers.

5. Create the On/Off Shortcuts

WakeMeOnLan offers a proper GUI but also supports command-line flags, which is what we'll use to create the shortcut to turn on a remote PC.

1. Right-click on a blank spot on your desktop and choose New > Shortcut.
2. Click the Browse button to find WakeMeOnLAN's executable from the requester that appears.
3. Leave a blank space after the executable, and type /wakeup YOUR_REMOTE_PC's_IP. Replace YOUR_REMOTE_PC's_IP with the IPv4 address you noted when you ran ipconfig on your remote PC.
4. Enter an appropriate name for your new shortcut. Click on Finish, and your first icon will be ready to use.
5. Create a second icon as before. For this one, you can use the Windows' native "shutdown" command instead of a third-party tool. So, instead of entering a path to an executable, type shutdown /s /m \\REMOTE_PC's_NAME. In our case, our remote PC was called "BlackBox", so our command was shutdown /s /m \\blackbox.
6. Enter an appropriate name for this shortcut as well. Finally, click on Finish to create your Remote-OFF shortcut.

Your shortcuts are now ready to use. With them, you don't have to turn to complicated solutions or get up to manually press a power button on another computer to turn it on. Instead, you can double-click on a "power on" shortcut on your desktop and hear your remote PC instantly spring to action.