Power Management

The Intel® PROSet Power Management tab replaces the standard Microsoft* Windows* Power Management tab in Device Manager. It includes the Power Saver and Wake on LAN* (WoL*) options that were previously included on the Advanced tab. The standard Windows power management functionality is incorporated on the Intel PROSet tab.

NOTES:
  • The options available on the Power Management tab are adapter and system dependant. Not all adapters will display all options.
  • The following adapters support WoL only on Port A:
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350-T2
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350-T4
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I340-T2
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I340-T4
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I340-F4
    • Intel® Gigabit ET2 Quad Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PF Quad Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PT Quad Port LP Server Adapter
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PT Quad Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Network Connection
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Connection
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® PRO/1000 PF Dual Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® Gigabit PT Quad Port Server ExpressModule
  • The following adapters do not support WoL:
    • Intel® PRO/1000 MT Quad Port Server adapter
    • Intel® Gigabit VT Quad Port Server Adapter
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter X520-2
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter X520-1
    • Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter X540-T1
    • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T2
    • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540-T1

NOTE: If your system has a Manageability Engine, the Link LED may stay lit even if WoL is disabled.

Power Options

The Intel PROSet Power Management tab includes several settings that control the adapter's power consumption. For example, you can set the adapter to reduce its power consumption if the cable is disconnected.

If Reduce speed during standby is enabled,  then Wake on Magic Packet and/or Wake on directed packet must be enabled. If both of these options are disabled, power is removed from the adapter during standby. Wake on Magic Packet from power off state has no effect on this option.

Energy Efficient Ethernet

The Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) feature allows a capable device to enter Low Power Idle between bursts of network traffic. Both ends of a link must have EEE enabled for any power to be saved. Both ends of the link will resume full power when data needs to be transmitted. This transition may introduce a small amount of network latency.

NOTES:

  • Both ends of the EEE link must automatically negotiate link speed.
  • EEE is not supported at 10Mbps.

 

Intel® Auto Connect Battery Saver

The Intel® Auto Connect Battery Saver (ACBS) feature turns off the adapter when link is down or the network cable is disconnected. After a timeout period, the adapter will power off. When the network cable is reconnected and link is restored, the NIC powers up and functionality is fully restored.

ACBS only functions when the system is on battery power. If the power cable is connected, ACBS will be automatically disabled. If ACBS is active, the adapter will appear to be powered off. If you have Intel® PROSet installed, on the Link Speed tab, the Link Status will indicate Speed: Not connected. Power off.

NOTE: ACBS will not function on an adapter if the adapter has forced speed or duplex settings. ACBS will only function if the adapter is set to auto-detect or auto-negotiate.

Intel® System Idle Power Saver

The Intel® System Idle Power Saver feature sets the adapter to negotiate the lowest possible speed setting when the system and network are idle. When the system activity is detected, the link will be negotiated to a higher speed.

To support this feature, the adapter must be

Remote Wake-Up and Wake on LAN*

The ability to remotely wake computers is an important development in computer management. This feature has evolved over the last few years from a simple remote power-on capability to a complex system interacting with a variety of device and operating system power states. More details are available here.

Windows Vista*, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are ACPI-capable. These operating systems do not support wake from a power-off (S5) state, only from standby (S3) or hibernate (S4). When shutting down the system, they shutdown ACPI devices, including Intel adapters. This disarms the adapters remote wake up capability. However, in some ACPI-capable computers, the BIOS may have a setting that allows you to override the operating system and wake from an S5 state anyway. If there is no support for wake from S5 state in your BIOS settings, you are limited to Wake From Standby when using these operating systems in ACPI computers.

For some adapters, the Power Management tab in Intel PROSet includes a setting called Wake on Magic Packet from power off state. Enable this setting to explicitly allow wake up with a Magic Packet* from shutdown under APM power management mode.

In ACPI-capable versions of Windows, the Intel PROSet Power Management tab includes Wake on Magic Packet and Wake on directed packet settings. These controls the type of packets that wake up the system from standby.

Wake on Intel® Ready Access

Intel® Ready Access keeps your network connection active when the rest of your system is in sleep or standby mode, so that content on your system is readily accessible. Requests from other computers will wake up your computer.

Last modified on 4/24/13.