Drew,
I did some more troubleshooting and i figured out what was causing the watchdog error. Adapters 3 and 4 were causing the issue. i created a new VM and disabled each adapter at a time starting with 4, and then i started the VM after disabling the individual adapters. The error went away when the VM booted after adapters 3 and 4 were both disabled. I then added 6 nics/ports and the VM booted without a problem. i hope this helps you narrow down the issue with the VM.