Motherboard seems to not support wake on USB keyboard/mouse

[jimhoyle]

I have Asus Prime Z370-A and it seems that it may not support waking up a computer on sleep by USB mouse/keyboard (and there is no PS/2 port so that's not an option either). This USB wake feature seems to be not really documented, which is terrible. This is one of the most important features to me. So I build a new PC, installed tons of stuff etc. and now I learn that I don't have a practical way to turn on my computer. Because the computer is in a cabinet and it's very hard to access it physically.

I have of course made sure that my mouse and keyboard has "[x] Allow this device to wake the computer" on and also "powercfg /devicequery wake_armed" in cmd.exe lists my devices, no problem. But the computer just doesn't turn on with keyboard or mouse. None of the BIOS options help either (there is no option for waking up by USB).

Is there some way to hack this? I need to wake my computer using USB keyboard or mouse. If neither of those work, the BIOS does support waking on RTC, Ring or PCIe (LAN). What's the best way of waking my computer from a distance in this case? I have to resort to some corded device if necessary. I didn't yet try waking up via LAN, but that doesn't sound like a sane solution for this.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Uhh, "Wake by USB", is NOT the same thing, as "Power On by USB".

I'm pretty sure all modern motherboards support "wake by USB" (keyboard / mouse).

Not all motherboards, support "power on by USB".

Have you tried using:
1) A USB keyboard with a specific "power on" key (they make these).
2) A modern PC, that supports "wake by USB", and "fast startup", running Windows 10, set to "Fast Startup" (which does a Deep Sleep, when you select Shutdown. It does NOT fully power-off.)

Edit: I tried to find those keyboards with power-on / sleep keys, they used to make cheap generic keyboards that had them. Can't seem to find any now.

 

[jimhoyle]

Good remark about "wake by" and "power on by".

My PC is very new. Now I found out that if I connect a USB keyboard directly into the tower USB ports, it wakes up normally from sleep. However, if the device is after one or two USB hubs, they don't wake up. But, I've used the exact same devices before (I didn't touch the cable setup) and they worked just fine on my previous motherboard in Windows 7. (Now this is Windows 10.)

I guess it's possible to figure out what's preventing the wake from working. Where to look? I enabled also ALL Device Manager / Human Interface Devices where it was possible to put [x] Allow this device to wake computer. However, there are bunch of important sounding entries that don't alow that. So for example under HID, I've got "Logitech Gaming USB G3 (MX518) Optical Mouse but that is greyed out at [ ] Allow this device to wake the computer. I also disabled all [ ] Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. Same also for all entries in Universal Serial Bus controllers.

I can see that my mouse red "laser" light turns on when I click the mouse when the computer is sleeping. So it clearly is getting power and reacts. But the computer just doesn't wake up.

(I can't connect the keyboard/mouse directly to the tower PC without dismantling some permanent cable installations. The same cables/hubs worked just fine with the previous motherboard.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

well, if you meant wake from sleep, yes, that is also dependent on BIOS support.

I've noticed, that with some of my PCs, I can plug the primary wired keyboard and mouse, into my primary USB3.0 hub, connected to a USB3.0 port on the back of the PC, and it works to enter the BIOS (hit DEL to access SETUP), but DOES NOT work, when I plug it into my secondary USB3.0 hub, that is plugged into my primary USB3.0 hub.

IOW, plugging kbd/mse into PC directly, or into a USB3.0 hub one hop away, works, but not two hops away.

You may be encountering something similar, if you have multiple USB hubs in-between your kbd/mse and your PC.

 

[jimhoyle]

Thanks, now my mouse triggers the wake from sleep when it's connected to hub 1! It's just that on my old setup with exact same gear (just older motherboard) I did have mouse wake from sleep working when connected to chained hub 2 (monitor). Just wondering if there's some setting I could try to restore my previous functionality (that was Win7, this is now win10).

 

[jimhoyle]

And now it's resolved! The word of advice to anyone with this problem: make sure you try ALL USB ports on your PC case. Some evidently support the wake on USB with a device behind multiple hubs/cables and some don't. (And the keyboard/mouse may work just fine behind all ports while still the wake just doesn't work on some ports.)