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.

--
Tilman Schmidt
Phoenix Software GmbH
Bonn, Germany

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