Thanks for 38 reads and no responses.
If anyone else researches this: Yes, there is an F3 bios available. Be careful flashing it, preferably outside of Windows 7.
It doesn't solve the kernel crash issue. Neither does reinstalling Windows, moving back to 270 series drivers, tweaking voltage to 1.030, running another browser besides Firefox, moving up to beta version 11 of Flash, running no mouse driver, slowing the clocks for GPU or memory. I've also tried disabling firewall/AV, turning off the superfetch service, and killing all other services but minimal to play a game.
I haven't yet tried standing on my head or chanting while booting. That's next....
I know many other factory overclock 460 and 560 cards also have problems, but their manufacturers have been slightly more vocal than Gigabyte from my reading. Glad I bought Asus for my new motherboard. For any bright sparks out there, NO, the motherboard isn't the cause - an old ATI 4850 runs fine.
