After adding these patches from 2.6.30 to a 2.6.29 kernel, pulseaudio problems are worse:
ALSA: pcm - Reset invalid position even without debug option ALSA: pcm - Fix delta calculation at boundary overlap ALSA: pcm - Safer boundary checks ALSA: Rewrite hw_ptr updaters
Mar 28 14:28:20 platon pulseaudio[3040]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 60,00 ms Mar 28 14:31:35 platon pulseaudio[3040]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 70,00 ms Mar 28 14:31:35 platon pulseaudio[3040]: alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 80,00 ms Mar 28 14:31:35 platon pulseaudio[3040]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 4294952932 bytes (24347805 ms). Mar 28 14:31:35 platon pulseaudio[3040]: alsa-util.c: Most likely this is a bug in the ALSA driver 'snd_intel8x0'. Please report this issue to the ALSA developers. Mar 28 14:31:35 platon pulseaudio[3040]: rtpoll.c: Assertion 'usec <= ((pa_usec_t) 1000000ULL)*60ULL*60ULL' failed at pulsecore/rtpoll.c:548, function pa_rtpoll_set_timer_relative(). Aborting.