This ESP32-Based PCIe Card Powers-On a PC Remotely
You want to turn your PC on, but you’re not nearby to push the power button. What do you do? Wake-on-LAN (WoL) is the typical solution, but it requires a wired Ethernet connection and the right network card, motherboard, and BIOS. Andrea Aghemo came up with a better solution: an ESP32-based PCIe card that presses the PC’s power button on request.
A motherboard’s PCIe slots do not provide full power when the PC is off, but they do provide a little bit of auxiliary power. That auxiliary power is exactly how PCIe network cards provide WoL functionality. For this project, Aghemo took advantage of the same PCIe slots and the same auxiliary power (3.3V on pin B10), but in a way that makes more sense in many modern environments. It doesn’t require Ethernet at all and it doesn’t care if the motherboard or BIOS support WoL.
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