[Avila] watchdog on avila (GW-2348)

[Sebastian G]

2008/4/11, Chris Lang <chris at ccbw.net>:
> To All,
>
>  I will just piggy back on what Tim said...
>
>  The internal IXP watchdog is not adequate on these boards to use as a
>  watchdog as it doesn't reset flash, as stated, if it is used, you will
>  experience boot problems if the watchdog resets during a flash read or
>  write.
>
>  The reason the IXP42x watchdog is not used is that there was a bug in the
>  silicon of the IXP42x when this was designed that made the watchdog hang the
>  CPU upon a reset, hence the reason why other IXP hardware is configured the
>  same.
>
>  The external watchdog can be used, but as Tim said can be difficult to
>  strobe from as you have to strobe it once a second. We, Gateworks, configure
>  GPIO14 from within redboot as a 4.7mhz clock which strobes the watchdog
>  adequately but only protects against processor lock-ups, not from software
>  lock-ups, typically not what you want. It has been noted that attempting to
>  strobe the watchdog with a heartbeat has a high percentage chance of
>  failing, and has seen to fail when the board comes under heavy load.
>
>  The resistors are not loaded by default on the GW2348 series because there
>  is not an ability to enable/disable the watchdog. If the resistor is loaded,
>  you have to strobe the watchdog, or the board is unusable. The loading of
>  the resistors is an ordering option for 100pc min purchases.
>
>  There is also issues with programming the boards through jtag with the
>  watchdog resistor loaded, this has been resolved with the DOS version of our
>  utility, but no other jtag programmers/debuggers currently work with the
>  resistor loaded.
>
>  Thanks,
>
> Chris Lang
>  clang at gateworks.com
>

ok, thank you all for the help. Now it is all clear for me. It just
looks like the avila boards are not to well for any outdoor use if
they do not have a proper watchdog on board ready to use.

Best regards,
    Sebastian.