FreeBSD 6.1-PRERELEASE (April 5, 2006) randomly rebooting on Dell Poweredge 650

[Darren Pilgrim]

Matt Watson wrote:
> The subject line pretty much says it all, I have a Dell Poweredge 650 
> box running 6.1-PRERELEASE which was cvsup'd on April 5, 2006.  The box 
> has now twice rebooted on its own for no aparant reason.
<...>
[Log indicates no errors, spontaneous reboot.]
<...>
> 
> This machine previously had Linux installed on the box and did not 
> display the same problems, so I'm going on the assumption that its not a 
> hardware failure.
> 
> Aside from the reboots the box has been preforming extermely well.
> 
> If anybody can provide some insights or suggestions I'd greatly 
> appreciate it.

Check your BIOS settings for a hardware watchdog timer.  I had this problem 
on some brand-new servers (same class of hardware as yours) and disabling 
the timer stopped the reboots.

Intel 6300ESB, if anyone's interested.