I went and found the MB manual here. This is what is says about hardware monitoring:
- Temperature Sensing: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
- Fan Tachometer: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
- Quiet Fan (Auto adjust chassis fan speed by CPU
temperature): CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans - Fan Multi-Speed Control: CPU, Chassis/Water Pump Fans
- CASE OPEN detection
- Voltage monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Nothing about a watchdog timer - so another theory trashed.