diff --git a/gnu-system.am b/gnu-system.am
index f77bb03da7..4a8414951b 100644
--- a/gnu-system.am
+++ b/gnu-system.am
@@ -242,6 +242,7 @@ dist_patch_DATA =						\
   gnu/packages/patches/perl-no-sys-dirs.patch			\
   gnu/packages/patches/plotutils-libpng-jmpbuf.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/procps-make-3.82.patch			\
+  gnu/packages/patches/pulseaudio-test-timeouts.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/python-fix-dbm.patch			\
   gnu/packages/patches/qemu-multiple-smb-shares.patch		\
   gnu/packages/patches/qt4-tests.patch				\
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/pulseaudio-test-timeouts.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/pulseaudio-test-timeouts.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ab818ad0aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gnu/packages/patches/pulseaudio-test-timeouts.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+Increase the timeout of the thread test.  Hydra was intermittedly
+failing this test due to premature timeout, and slower machines
+consistently fail.
+
+Patch by Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>.
+
+--- pulseaudio/src/tests/thread-test.c.orig	2012-09-26 07:27:01.000000000 -0400
++++ pulseaudio/src/tests/thread-test.c	2013-10-31 22:53:23.224000184 -0400
+@@ -152,6 +152,10 @@
+     s = suite_create("Thread");
+     tc = tcase_create("thread");
+     tcase_add_test(tc, thread_test);
++    /* the default timeout is too small,
++     * set it to a reasonable large one.
++     */
++    tcase_set_timeout(tc, 60 * 60);
+     suite_add_tcase(s, tc);
+ 
+     sr = srunner_create(s);
diff --git a/gnu/packages/pulseaudio.scm b/gnu/packages/pulseaudio.scm
index 6318ca5882..1c579bfb2c 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/pulseaudio.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/pulseaudio.scm
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
   #:use-module ((guix licenses)
                 #:renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'l:))
   #:use-module (guix build-system gnu)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages)
   #:use-module (gnu packages linux)
   #:use-module (gnu packages oggvorbis)
   #:use-module (gnu packages pkg-config)
@@ -141,7 +142,8 @@ parse JSON formatted strings back into the C representation of JSON objects.")
                    version ".tar.xz"))
              (sha256
               (base32
-               "1bndz4l8jxyq3zq128gzp3gryxl6yjs66j2y1d7yabw2n5mv7kim"))))
+               "1bndz4l8jxyq3zq128gzp3gryxl6yjs66j2y1d7yabw2n5mv7kim"))
+             (patches (list (search-patch "pulseaudio-test-timeouts.patch")))))
     (build-system gnu-build-system)
     (arguments
      '(#:configure-flags '("--localstatedir=/var" ;"--sysconfdir=/etc"