bnx2 causes panic after NETDEV WATCHDOG has fired up on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

Issue

The system panicked with these messages in /var/log/messages:

    NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth1: transmit timed out
    bnx2: fw sync timeout, reset code = 1030006
    Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000108
    RIP:<ffffffffa00b7410>{:bnx2:bnx2_poll+274}
    PML4 416fd0067 PGD 0
    Oops: 0000 [1] SMP
    CPU 0
    Modules linked in: nfs lockd nfs_acl fjrmsc(U) rscif(U) klpg(U) mptctl autofs4 i2c_dev i2c_core
     ipmi(U) smbus(U) sunrpc ide_dump scsi_dump diskdump zlib_deflate dm_mirror dm_multipath dm_mod button battery ac md5 ipv6 uh
    ci_hcd ehci_hcd bnx2 ext3 jbd ata_piix libata mptscsih mptspi mptsas mptscsi mptbase sd_mod scsi_mod
    Pid: 3362, comm: klogd Tainted: GF     2.6.9-67.ELsmp
    RIP: 0010:[<ffffffffa00b7410>] <ffffffffa00b7410>{:bnx2:bnx2_poll+274}
    RSP: 0018:ffffffff8045fe88  EFLAGS: 00010206
    RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 000001041473eca0 RCX: 000001041a406000
    RDX: ffffff0000060000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 00000000000000ca
    RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 000000042fee4602 R09: 0000000000000246
    R10: 0000000000000246 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 000001042fd3b380
    R13: 00000000000031ca R14: 0000010425985da8 R15: 0000000000000000
    FS:  0000002a958a1b00(0000) GS:ffffffff804f2d80(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
    CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 000000008005003b
    CR2: 0000000000000108 CR3: 0000000000101000 CR4: 00000000000006e0
    Process klogd (pid: 3362, threadinfo 0000010425984000, task 0000010414ad67f0)
    Stack: ffffffff8049bb88 0000000000000202 ffffffff8040c3b8 0000000000000009
           0000000000002706 0000000000000246 00000001d9db37a2 0000000000000001
           000cfa27b13ed2c6 00000100bfda57f0
    Call Trace:<IRQ> <ffffffffa00baaf1>{:bnx2:bnx2_start_xmit+449} <ffffffff802c3b14>{qdisc_restart+298}
           <ffffffff802b517b>{net_rx_action+203} <ffffffff8013cff0>{__do_softirq+88}
           <ffffffff8013d099>{do_softirq+49} <ffffffff80113247>{do_IRQ+328}
           <ffffffff80110833>{ret_from_intr+0}  <EOI> <ffffffff801385e9>{do_syslog+405}
           <ffffffff801385e9>{do_syslog+405} <ffffffff80136020>{autoremove_wake_function+0}
           <ffffffff80136020>{autoremove_wake_function+0} <ffffffff80136020>{autoremove_wake_function+0}
           <ffffffff801b16aa>{kmsg_read+56} <ffffffff8017ad2c>{vfs_read+207}
     <ffffffff8017af88>{sys_read+69} <ffffffff8011026a>{system_call+126}

    Code: 48 8b 85 08 01 00 00 66 83 78 08 00 74 25 8b 40 04 41 8d 54
    RIP <ffffffffa00b7410>{:bnx2:bnx2_poll+274} RSP <ffffffff8045fe88>
    CR2: 0000000000000108