Have a look at the network card : if you can see some LED blinking on it while the computer is powered off, it is certainly able to manage the computer power status. Most of computers that are less than 5 years old have nowadays such a network card. You need a computer with a network card that accepts Magic packets and that is able to manage the computer power status. Not all computers can be powered on this way. The client to which this “magic packet” is sent then powers on by itself. It is quite simple: a computer, with a dedicated software, sends a signal across the network called a magic packet. Related post: Remotely Shutdown client computers
Also, with WOL, you don’t even have to leave your desk to power on a client before working on it with VNC or Remote Desktop… (I’m quite sure some people here will appreciate that !)
It can be very useful to be able to power on a client in a remote location, or to be able to power on all clients at once. A very interesting feature to set up on the client computers that you manage is Wake up On LAN, or WOL.
