too many authentication failures for ...

Hello Everybody,

I need help for a "Too Many authentication failures for user_1" when a client using ssh2 is trying to get access to a FreeBSD server.

I found this on the web :

<web>

This message is produced by an OpenSSH (or Sun SSH) server if it receives more failed authentication attempts than it is willing to tolerate. (...) This can be worked around on the server by disabling public-key authentication (...)
</web>

But I don't want disable the public-key authentication, I have other clients who need it to access to the server ; so is there a way to re-initialize sshd on the server side ?

thanks for any help

-- 
Anselme