Abstract: Magic Packet technique is developed to remotely awake a computer host in a sleeping mode on a node through computer network. Instead of utilizing a large amount of memory or a complex algorithm, an algorithm and system, which only utilize two sets of counters and control logics to perfectly detect the Magic Packet according to the characteristics of magic packet are disclosed. According to the present invention, if a LAN controller on a node of the network is in magic packet mode, it will detect all input frames addressed in the node to search a specific data sequence indicative of the Magic Packet frame. Once the controller detects the data sequence, it will notice the power management circuitry of the computer host on the sleeping node to awake the system.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for detecting the link status of a network device in a computer system. An automatic link status detection mechanism allows a system to operate intelligently in a normal operation mode if the link status is on, or a suspend mode if the link state is down. The mechanism includes an auto link poll controller and a polling cycle generator for generating a sequence of polling cycles to query the link status of the network device. A media independent interface management frame having a preamble field is generated in a polling cycle. Because of the improved preamble field, it is to assure that an exact polling cycle is complete when a polling cycle is issued to the physical layer of the network device.

Abstract: In a method and apparatus for detecting a wake packet among data bytes in a packet frame issued by a network device, the data bytes in the packet frame are initially compared with a sync byte to detect start of a synchronization stream of the wake packet. The number of consecutive sync matches of the data bytes in the packet frame with the sync byte is counted, and a partial match flag is set upon detection that the number of consecutive sync matches has reached a predetermined number of sync duplications of the sync byte to indicate that the synchronization stream has been detected in the packet frame. When the partial match flag is set, the data bytes that follow the synchronization stream in the packet frame are compared with address bytes of a destination address assigned to a sleeping node.