ALSA xrun condition with Fast Track Pro causes hard system lock

Using an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB external sound card, I experience frequent system crashes that appear to be correlated with an ALSA xrun condition (the "xruns"display in QJackCtl indicates a non-zero value). Shortly after the xrun condition occurs, the CPU usage widget shows 100% CPU usage, and the system becomes progressively more sluggish until it is entirely non-responsive and needs a hard reboot. No relevant messages appear in dmesg or the system log.

Differential diagnosis:
1. Removing pulseaudio makes no difference.
2. Modifying jackd's realtime and memory locking parameters makes no difference.
3. Seems to be slightly more frequent with jackd1 than jackd2, although jack is not actually required to cause the problem (I can produce it using REAPER in Wine with just the regular ALSA outputs, no jackd running at all).
4. Problem does NOT occur in previous kernel from Lucid, 2.6.35-22-generic, which was left on the system after the upgrade and is still usable.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: linux-image-2.6.35-22-generic 2.6.35-22.34
Regression: Yes
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.34-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC3: mdm27 2291 F.... kmix
 /dev/snd/controlC0: mdm27 2291 F.... kmix
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfbcf8000 irq 47'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC1200'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,102802c9,00100101'
   Controls : 38
   Simple ctrls : 21
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'Pro'/'M-Audio FastTrack Pro at usb-0000:00:1a.0-1, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB0763:2012'
   Controls : 0
   Simple ctrls : 0
Card1.Amixer.values:

Card2.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:2 'Cable'/'USB Midi Cable at usb-0000:00:1a.7-2.1, full speed'
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB15ca:0101'
   Controls : 0
   Simple ctrls : 0
Card2.Amixer.values:

Card3.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:3 'HDMI'/'HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfbefc000 irq 48'
   Mixer name : 'ATI R6xx HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:1002aa01,00aa0100,00100100'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card3.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [off]
Date: Sat Oct 16 09:26:21 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=98ce544b-db44-4008-85e7-2fb3e62984f1
IwConfig:
 lo no wireless extensions.

 eth0 no wireless extensions.
MachineType: Dell Inc. Studio XPS 435MT
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=ad721310-93da-4048-97ee-7c4f80010f42 ro quiet crashkernel=384M-2G:64M,2G-:128M
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.38
RfKill:

SourcePackage: linux
WpaSupplicantLog:

dmi.bios.date: 04/15/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.0.13
dmi.board.name: 0R849J
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A01
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.0.13:bd04/15/2009:svnDellInc.:pnStudioXPS435MT:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0R849J:rvrA01:cvnDellInc.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Studio XPS 435MT
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.