[CentOS] CentOS 6.3 early panic on Xeon E3-1270V2 (was: CentOS 6 early panic on ESXi 4.1.0 build 800380)

Alright, it's the CPU. Subject adapted accordingly.

In a fit of recklessness, I updated VMware on one of the hosts on which the CentOS 6 machines were still able to run. Lo and behold, they still work fine there. So now I have:

ESXi Build 582267 800380 800380 Processor E5620 E3-1230 E3-1270V2

Windows ok ok ok (all versions)

CentOS 5.8 ok ok ok 2.6.18-308.13.1.el5

CentOS 6.2 ok ok ok(*) 2.6.32-220.7.1.el6.x86_64

CentOS 6.3 ok ok Panic 2.6.32-279.2.1.el6.x86_64

(*) except for the irritating keyboard blink

More ideas?

Thx T.