I'm having the same issue on the official 12.04 LTS relase i also believe it is causing the system to be
less responsive. According to some sources it's harmless. (i can apparently only post 2 links)
The following thinks this is error output from an onboard card reader:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1059099
It's confirmed to be an upstream issue in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/987993
Run lsusb and find the offending device
nathan@Ham-Bone:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. USB 2.0 multicard reader
In my case it's the Realtek multicard reader which a quick check of
$ dmesg | grep realtek [ 4.716068] usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-realtek $ lsmod | grep realtek ums_realtek 17920 0
reveals a module ums-realtek
$sudo rmmod ums_realtek
Fixes the problem in a reversible way for me. That is
$sudo modprobe ums_realtek
enables the card reader again. I haven't tested if it works since I never use it.
If this doesn't work there are some other ways to disable usb devices by unbinding them in the /sys/ directory.