Is WMI functioning on the machine that is inactive? Whenever I get an inactive machine I had to wipe and reset the WMI repositories.
I find the little script in this link fixes 99% of all my problems. Doesn't happen often but this solves it for me when it does.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2009/05/08/wmi-troubleshooting-tips.aspx