Rare Connection Resets after Linux Upgrade

Problem: after upgrading from Debian 6 to Debian 8 some of the machines lose their ethernet network connection under heavy load for some seconds rarely. You find lines like these in syslog:

[2333099.217735] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth1 (tg3): transmit queue 0 timed out
[2333099.217966] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: transmit timed out, resetting
[2333099.384391] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: 0: Host status block [00000001:0000003c:(0000:0018:0000):(0018:01e9)]
[2333099.386091] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: 0: NAPI info [00000022:00000022:(0016:01e9:01ff):019a:(0062:0000:0000:0000)]
[2333099.610954] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: Link is down
[2333102.731813] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: Link is up at 1000 Mbps, full duplex
[2333102.731822] tg3 0000:03:04.1 eth1: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX

The Debian upgrade changes the kernel and the new kernel seems to be not as stable as the old one which ran for years without any problem. One of the differences I found in the drivers is the ethernet acceleration mode for tg3 cards.

Workaround: after disabling some ethernet acceleration features I had no link resets. The computer is running about 9 weeks now with these settings:

/sbin/ethtool -K eth1 tso off
/sbin/ethtool -K eth1 gso off
/sbin/ethtool -K eth1 gro off

These commands disable segment offloading on eth1.

Versions: Debian 8.0 (July 2016), Kernel 3.16.0-4-amd64, Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5715 Gigabit Ethernet (rev a3)