cRIO system watchdog

We have a bench test setup with a cRIO and last year’s control system, excluding the driver station, to get experience with PID and motor control feedback.
The reason we’re excluding the driver station is because it will be obsolete in two months, and so training people how to use it is not a good use of time.

The problem I’m running into is the PWM, Relay, and Solenoid outputs aren’t functioning.
Sounds like the watchdog is dead.
However, I’ve opened the watchdog and “feed” it more than twice a second using the WPI “Watchdog” VIs (the timeout is .5 seconds).

Perhaps the problem is the system watchdog?

How do you make sure the system watchdog is enabled and active?

You have to have the DS connected for the system watchdog. See http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-2957

Does the I/O still work if you remove the firmware image from the cRIO?