Fw: How to reset the OS Watchdog timer in IBM x343?

[Won De Erick]

resending this to the FreeBSD hardware mailing list.
hope to receive a favorable response from you all.
other ways to solve the problem are highly appreciated.
Thanks!





----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Won De Erick <won.derick at yahoo.com>
To: freebsd-hardware at freebsd.org
Sent: Friday, August 1, 2008 11:53:31 AM
Subject: How to reset the OS Watchdog timer in IBM x343?


Hello,

I have been searching the internet as to how to enable the OS watchdog timer mechanism in IBM x343. 

I tried setting the watchdog timer at the BIOS utility, and what I wanted to know is how to reset the timer so as not to reboot the system during normal operation. The box is run by FreeBSD 6.2, and I can't just use the IBM director and/or the IBM director client as basically, it won't run on the said OS. Adding out-band management card will also not help as basically the box doesn't support such. 

I've learned that the built-in service processor can be accessed using the SMbus driver, but said driver is only for Windows/Linux. However, there should be a way how to access/control the watchdog timer either by using a BIOS interrupt call or a service. I need to send a heartbeat to the watchdog to continuously reset the timer.

Thanks and best regards,

Won