e1000 or e1000e or ixgbe interface has a link down/up event when changing the ring settings with 'ethtool -G' in RHEL 6

Issue

• While changing the ring buffer on one of our Interface which was in bond (Active -backup mode); we saw that primary and slave interfaces got interchanged
• Changing the ring buffer settings for e1000 or e1000e or ixgbe interfaces causes a link loss
• When running ethtool -G eth5 rx 2048 the bond reported the slave as having gone down and back up quickly:

Jul 20 00:15:43 example kernel: bonding: bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth4, disabling it
Jul 20 00:15:43 example kernel: bonding: bond0: making interface eth0 the new active one.
Jul 20 00:15:46 example kernel: e1000e: eth4 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None
Jul 20 00:15:46 example kernel: bond0: link status definitely up for interface eth4, 1000 Mbps full duplex.
Jul 20 00:15:47 example kernel: e1000e: eth4 NIC Link is Down
Jul 20 00:15:47 example kernel: bonding: bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth4, disabling it
Jul 20 00:15:49 example kernel: e1000e: eth4 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None
Jul 20 00:15:49 example kernel: bond0: link status definitely up for interface eth4, 1000 Mbps full duplex.
Jul 20 00:34:52 example kernel: bonding: bond1: link status definitely down for interface eth5, disabling it
Jul 20 00:34:52 example kernel: bonding: bond1: making interface eth1 the new active one.
Jul 20 00:34:55 example kernel: e1000e: eth5 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None
Jul 20 00:34:55 example kernel: bond1: link status definitely up for interface eth5, 1000 Mbps full duplex.

Oct 19 12:22:10 kernel: bonding: bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth9, disabling it  
Oct 19 12:22:10 kernel: ixgbe 0000:47:00.1: eth9: detected SFP+: 5
Oct 19 12:22:11 kernel: bonding: bond0: link status definitely down for interface eth10, disabling it  
Oct 19 12:22:11 kernel: ixgbe 0000:04:00.1: eth10: detected SFP+: 5
Oct 19 12:22:12 kernel: ixgbe 0000:47:00.1: eth9: NIC Link is Up 10 Gbps, Flow Control: None
Oct 19 12:22:12 kernel: bond0: link status definitely up for interface eth9, 10000 Mbps full duplex.
Oct 19 12:22:13 kernel: ixgbe 0000:04:00.1: eth10: NIC Link is Up 10 Gbps, Flow Control: None