P4C800-E: Wake on ring (WOR) not working

  • Thread starter Thread starter Derek Hawkins
  • Start date Start date
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Derek Hawkins

Has anyone got WOR to work with this board and a serial external Modem? In
my case it neither works from power-off or standby. "Power on by external
Modems" is enabled in the BIOS. Tried with both BIOS 1011 and 1014. Tried
everything including clearing CMOS, resetting defaults etc.. The reason why
it doesn't work from standby is obvious since the modem is installed without
the usual power management property tab in which you allow it to wake the
system from standby. WOR works fine with my CUSL2 system using the same
modem and it is installed with a power management tab in XP. I use it to
wake the system and receive faxes.
 
"Derek Hawkins" said:
Has anyone got WOR to work with this board and a serial external Modem? In
my case it neither works from power-off or standby. "Power on by external
Modems" is enabled in the BIOS. Tried with both BIOS 1011 and 1014. Tried
everything including clearing CMOS, resetting defaults etc.. The reason why
it doesn't work from standby is obvious since the modem is installed without
the usual power management property tab in which you allow it to wake the
system from standby. WOR works fine with my CUSL2 system using the same
modem and it is installed with a power management tab in XP. I use it to
wake the system and receive faxes.
Click to expand...

Does your motherboard use the Winbond 83627 Super I/O chip ? I cannot
see the chip numbers in the manual, so this is a guess based on one of the
other P4C boards:

http://www.winbond-usa.com/products/winbond_products/pdfs/PCIC/627thf.pdf

While the chip has RIN# inputs (Ring Indicator on 9 pin serial connectors),
I don't see anything in the register interface to suggest that RIN
activity can wake up the chip. Maybe I'm missing something. The Winbond
chip seems to be more interested in SIR/CIR functions. Looking at PDF
page 172 of the Winbond spec (the ACPI device), there isn't any mention
of UART there, only CIR. On PDF page 176, the CRF6 register suggests an
SMI interrupt could be generated, but I don't know if this is
appropriate for waking a system or not. (And I don't see anything in
the BIOS concerning System Management Interrupts...)

If you compare this chip to an iteusa.com chip, like the 8712 used
on some Asus systems, the serial ports are mentioned in the APC/PME
enable register. So, at least in the ITE chip, it is plain to see that
the hardware supports more waking functions than the Winbond.

http://www.iteusa.com/pc/IT8712_V07.zip (PDF page 62)

Phone up Asus technical support and ask them if this will ever
be fixed in the BIOS.

Looking at the BIOS, the functions in the Power menu might have some
side effect on the waking functions. Like whether ACPI 2.0 is enabled
or not. Since ACPI is complicated stuff, I don't know which setting in
there might do the job.

Good luck,
Paul
 
Paul, your time and effort on this is greatly appreciated, thanks.
Does your motherboard use the Winbond 83627 Super I/O chip ?
Click to expand...

Yes, it does, W83627THF-A is written on the chip.
While the chip has RIN# inputs (Ring Indicator on 9 pin serial connectors),
I don't see anything in the register interface to suggest that RIN
activity can wake up the chip.
Click to expand...

Under the "Manageability" specifications summary for the board it mentions
WOL/WOR by PME, there is no mention of WOR by RI. But then what would the
BIOS setting "Power on by external Modems" be addressing, a USB Modem?
Phone up Asus technical support and ask them if this will ever
be fixed in the BIOS.
Click to expand...

Well, I have been dealing with them and the last reply from them was about
two pages of canned email requesting that just about every detail in the
computer be forwarded to them before speaking with someone. I replied saying
"Long story short, does the board support WOR by RI".
Looking at the BIOS, the functions in the Power menu might have some
side effect on the waking functions. Like whether ACPI 2.0 is enabled
or not. Since ACPI is complicated stuff, I don't know which setting in
there might do the job.
Click to expand...

Thinking along those lines I tried everything imaginable even enabling the
gameport and the Promise Controller which are not used by me. Tried varies
"permutations" of BIOS APM settings as well. This is so simple to get
working on the CUSL2 board that I have concluded that WOR by RI is simply
not supported. But even then I'm hoping that someone will reply saying "I
have it working here".
 
A technical person from Asus just called me and tried to convince me that
WOR by RI using an external serial Modem was not possible and that only an
internal Modem could do this. I had to explain to him that WOR by RI using
an external serial Modem was the first implementation of WOR and has been
around ever since WOR became available on motherboards.

This is sad, I mean what planet do these people live on, a Google search
could tell him that. Also had to point out to him that what he was saying
didn't make any sense based on what is shown in the BIOS. If the APM
Configuration BIOS option, in the BIOS setup for the P4C800-E, called "Power
on by external Modems" is highlighted, a functional description of the
option is shown on the right hand side of the screen as follows;

"Disable/Enable RI to generate a wake event"

That is, there is or was the intention that this board support WOR by RI
using an external Modem. He then said he would research it further and get
back to me.
 
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