Remotely turning on or rebooting a frozen computer

Question

I use a remote desktop program (usually Microsoft's Remote Desktop) to connect to a Windows machine everyday. The remote computer has a fixed IP address, and if the computer is on and responsive, I can access it and even reboot the computer remotely if necessary.

Unfortunately, if the remote computer freezes (for example, if it gets a blue screen), as far as I know, I can't use a remote desktop solution to restart it. Similarly, if my computer is off, I can't use remote desktop to boot it.

I know that one solution is to ask somebody who is physically near the computer to press the reboot or power on button, but I am opening this thread because I am interested in solutions that do not require the physical presence of people to turn on or reboot a remote frozen computer.

Is this possible? If so, what are my options?

Answer 1

Server-grade computers by most major manufacturers have provided these types of management capabilities for many years. Watchdog timers in the BIOS, COM-based Telnet console redirect, IP based COM, remote KVM, etc.

For a desktop-grade computer you have a few options:

1) Replace your system with one that has these types of management features (out-of-band management).

Intel offers their AMT (Advanced Management Technologies) on the desktop as well, which when adhering to the certain requirement is branded as vPro. (Basically a vPro-compatible board and CPU).

AMD has DASH; with similar requirements I'm sure. I've never used it, and haven't seen any 3rd party support for it.

I prefer Intel's AMT personally. All versions (that are 'vPro') allow shutdown, power-on, reset (hard), as well as a textual BIOS and boot view. The newest versions include a VNC-based "KVM" that allows you interact with the boot process as well as the OS, so it can be used to diagnose boot problems (BIOS, POST, Bluescreens, etc.) as well as end-user and OS support.

2) Get a remote-controlled power strip:

As echoback mentioned, there's products by DLI (Digital Loggers Inc.):

I looked into this, and it was too expensive for small-time use. Perhaps the price has come down though. It was feature rich, but I've never actually used it.

Another option is Technology On Demand's recent iRemoteReset product:

It is aimed mainly for auto-rebooting a router/modem combo (we use them mainly for that), but it shouldn't have a problem dealing with a desktop computer as a load. You can hit it by HTTP and reset the sockets manually (individually), as well as have it auto-reset due to lack of Internet connectivity, schedules and such.

3) Build an Interent-enabled robotic arm.

:)

Answer 2

There's an option in sysdm.cpl -> Advanced tab -> Startup and Recovery section (settings) -> called "Automatically restart" that will automatically restart the machine upon a blue screen.

Machines that depend on remote access for configuration/support need to have this enabled. You can then check eventvwr.msc or use a utility like NirSoft's BlueScreenView to later determine the STOP code and find why it crashed.

There are many types of freezes. A "hard freeze" where even the mouse stops working has a high percentage of defective hardware as the cause and needs to be physically looked at when that occurs. I've had users say their systems are frozen, but the system is just "stuck" at some point and they can still move the mouse. I've been able to use Sysinternal's PsExec sometimes to get a remote command prompt and issue a shutdown -r -t -0 command which reboots it.

At my place of work, we are a Dell shop. A lot of newer "high-end" Dell computers (T5400 and T5500 specifically) have a feature called AMT (that we don't use for some reason...). Supposedly it is a component that lets you remote reboot (even if the system is hung or powered off) and access the BIOS remotely. I don't know if you can get something with similar capability on a PCI card. I'm sure other manufacturers have a similar feature in their higher-end workstations and something like this is likely what you want.

Answer 3

I haven't found a way to reboot a computer that is hung up besides a remote power switch device. I use this one ip-p3 and it supports rebooting over the LAN or telephone. It's $200 though.

If you need something a little simpler, you could check this one out this. It's only $100, but the features of the IP-P3 are a lot better.

Answer 4

Another option can be using a virtual machine. It might take some time to move your server to the a virtual machine but it is free anyway. (VMWare is very nice for this and is free.)

Once you manage to migrate your server, you can install remote desktop server to virtual machine and a text-based (ssh-like) server to the real machine. I don't really know it VMWare has support for console commands, but I bet they have. So, you will use the same desktop software and you will connect directly to the virtual machines, your using habits wouldn't change and in case of system failure, you can easily restart, reboot or even reinstall windows to the machine.

It also provides a wall of security as virtual servers cannot access the data above as long as you don't give permission explicitly.

But also, if the windows machine is used on regular basis on local(w/o remote) using a virtual machine can be, disturbing.

-----edit----
Another budget option which solves the hardware failures as well. You can buy a 2nd hand cheap phone which has a vibration motor. Dissamble the phone and remove the vibration motor, throw it away, open your mainboard connect the reset pins to the remaining vibration pins on the phone by a relay contact. (requires soldering)

So when you call the phone, it will try to vibrate and eventually activate the relay which will hard reset the computer.

There a chance that you can break the cell phone completely while trying to dissamble and solder it, but so long as you use relays correctly, it is nearly impossible to do damage the mainboard.

Answer 5

Another option, though not exactly what you're asking for, is a "watchdog timer". This is an add-in piece of hardware that reboots the system if the timer is not reset in a given interval of time. (The reset is performed from a loop in a software module that continually checks system health.)

A few years back when I checked there were a number of different types of these being made, though I haven't checked recently.

Answer 6

In the case of Windows Remote Desktop Connection (RDC), which you appear to use, assuming it's not the blue-screen-of-death and just a frozen program causing RDC to hang, which is typically the case, I highly recommend PsTools. PsTools is free at Windows Sysinternals, the location of Mark Russinovich's developer tools for Windows. It's like using telnet in Linux, which you could also use in Windows for this by installing/enabling a telnet client locally and remotely. The nice thing about PsTools is that it requires no remote software installations.

After downloading PsTools and unzipping the executables into a folder, open a Windows Command Prompt and navigate to that folder. Using PsExec from the Command Prompt, execute the following command using the parameters that you normally use for Remote Desktop Connection (if you use VPN, you must login to that first to use the internal network syntax shown here, otherwise replace \\remotecomputername with the remote Windows computer's IP address):

psexec \\remotecomputername -u username -p password cmd

This will log you onto your remote Windows machine at the Command Prompt. You can then execute the following command, as if you were sitting at the computer:

shutdown -r -t 1

You can optionally add -f to the command to force the restart. To watch the whole shutdown and restart operation, before issuing that command, open another local Command Prompt window and ping the remote computer continuously for 99 seconds:

ping -t99 \\remotecomputername

If it is a properly frozen blue-screen-of-death situation, I'd use a networked AC power switch, power over LAN or auto-restart upon shutdown in the BIOS settings on the remote computer, and a networked RaspberryPi2 in an industrial-grade metal case installed near the power switch. That way, it should be trivial to issue commands to the RasPi2 over telnet to control the physical power to the remote computer for ~$150. You can obviously do other many interesting things by having a RasPi2 installed locally too, such as issue a shutdown command to the remote computer on weekends or at night or if there hasn't been any activity in the room for an hour, using a light sensor, range sensor, or the RasPiCam.

The original short version of this solution is posted here.

Answer 7

They are not cheap, but many companies offer remote power switches which provide a web interface to toggle power to a given outlet. These are typically used in data centers and server rooms to simplify maintenance, so if you can find a place nearby that is getting rid of equipment, you might be able to work something out for considerably less.

Answer 8

Check if your motherboard have watchdog timer. If it does (many do) then just install and configure proper software. Motherboard will reboot your computer if OS hangs.

Answer 9

Kind of an odd way to do it, but I have a home-made watchdog timer.

My Linux server instructs a PLC to perform various automation tasks in my house, but unfortunately freezes from time to time. I set my Cron scheduler to send a command to the PLC to tell it that it's still alive. If the PLC doesn't get the keep-alive command within its preset time, it clicks a relay that I wired up to the reset pins on my server.

Done.

Quite expensive, but it could be done cheaper. Get yourself an on-delay timer, and set it to say, a few minutes. Have your computer apply power to it (via printer port, breakout board) to keep the delay at a high value. If there is no power from the printer port, and the timer elapses, it resets the system.

Done.

Answer 10

Since you say your IP remains the same and is known to you, you can use this from the command prompt of your PC:

shutdown -r -m \\IP-Address

For example:

shutdown -r -m \\14.233.90.157

The only limitation is that the remote machine should have been last logged in with the same user account as the user from whose PC you are running this command.

Answer 11

I know this is an old post, and I hate to resurrect. But there is a thing called the Windows Emergency Management Services. It requires a USB connection to another computer on the network. (I've been thinking about trying to do this over a USB-server/network extender device.)

It is limited in its authentication requirements however, so I would recommend if you have two servers, or a server and a management computer, that you could have these systems monitor each other.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736319(v=ws.10).aspx

It isn't as robust as HP's iLO or Dell's iDRAC, but it is both cheaper, and more featured than an IP controlled power bar.

Of course, your mileage shoehorning this onto newer server OSes may vary.

Updated link to newer system set-up information. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/windows/hardware/ff542193(v=vs.85).aspx

Answer 12

I have a similar issue and have been thinking of trying a wifi light switch wired to a relay so when closed it "pushes" the reset button. This to me looks like the cheapest option with some wifi switches at or below $30. Sadly I am still travelling so I am still using my brother as the reset switch. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there, even if this is an old thread.

Answer 13

1. using RealVNC and sending ctrl-Alt-Del may solve the issue if you can connect remotely (this is possible even if the PC is frozen - RealVNC can comment on this)
2. using another remote PC on the same location and using RDP or pstools to reboot the remote PC
3. in my case, i am using all the above including Intel AMT and I created a small C# program to restart the pc forcefully (this is to make sure that i don't turn off the pc but simply re-starting it) when the computer is awake. Just to make sure that PC will be fresh again.

Answer 14

easy no watchdog? why buy expensive eth-switches ??? you have an analogue phone line near the computer?

just give this line a number only you use, (perfect if you have a i.e. FritzBox near the machien with a free analogue line) attach a relais (with rect. and cap.) and connect the relais-close to the reset-switch, in parallel to the existing reset switch. Now it the machine hangs, just call that number, let it ring one time, the machine gets its hit in the neck and reboots.

just wait for finish all this scandisk crap till its finished booting and continue your work.

Answer 15

We had a Qwest Actiontec PK5000 hang up while we were out of town for an extended month trip. We had a security camera running through the modem/router and of course we lost usage of the security camera as soon as the modem/router hung. A friend suggested the cheapest route would be to install a timer between the modem/router and AC power supply and have it be powered off each day for 5 mins. Of couse during a non-critical time frame.