Examining Wi-Fi Adapters and Power Management

by Mar 9, 2015

Windows 8.1/Server 2012 R2

Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 come with a bunch of highly useful cmdlets for network adapter management. When you want to investigate Wi-Fi connectivity problems, for example, or try and find out why Wake-On-LAN won’t wake the machine, it may be interesting to review the adapter power management settings.

This is now a piece of cake:

 
PS> Get-NetAdapter

Name                      InterfaceDescription                   ifIndex Status
                       
----                      --------------------                    ------- -----
Bluetooth-Netzwerkverb... Bluetooth-Gerät (PAN)                         7 Di...
WiFi                      Intel(R) Wireless-N 7260                      3 Up   



PS> Get-NetAdapter -Name WiFi

Name                      InterfaceDescription                   ifIndex Status
                      
----                      --------------------                    ------- -----
WiFi                      Intel(R) Wireless-N 7260                      3 Up    
 

Once you know the name of the adapter, ask for the power management settings:

 
PS> Get-NetAdapter -Name WiFi | Get-NetAdapterPowerManagement


InterfaceDescription    : Intel(R) Wireless-N 7260
Name                    : WiFi
ArpOffload              : Enabled
NSOffload               : Enabled
RsnRekeyOffload         : Enabled
D0PacketCoalescing      : Enabled
SelectiveSuspend        : Unsupported
DeviceSleepOnDisconnect : Disabled
WakeOnMagicPacket       : Enabled
WakeOnPattern           : Enabled 
 

Note that you need Administrator privileges to view power management settings, or else you get misleading error messages about a device not working properly.

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