Comment 47 for bug 479296

Is your audio provided by snd-hda-intel? If not then disregard this.

I think these issues could be caused by alsa kernel modules, as suggested earlier.

My current workaround is

i) Ensure correct audio chipset model is loaded:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
(confirm audio chipset with "cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#* | grep Codec" and start googling)
ii) If you changed "option snd-hda-intel model=XXX" to something more suitable then reboot

1) sudo killall pulseaudio (and anything else using audio)
2) sudo rmmod snd_hda_intel
3) sudo modprobe snd_hda_intel

Obviously, 3-5 imply that Daniel's analysis in #41 is spot-on, at least in my case.

Rock steady, no ratelimit.c messages using xbmc, no audio drops and my cpu usage graph doesn't look like the output of a 555.

HTH.