After swicthing to linux-3.8.3-2-x86_64 the built-in card reader of my laptop did not work anymore. When inserting an SD card, the following kernel message was logged three times in a row by journalctl:

mmc0: error -110 whilst initialising SD card

As a result, no device (e. g. /dev/sdb and /dev/sdb1) for the SD card was created and the card could not be mounted.

lspci for the card reader:

0a:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5209 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)

The bug and the error messages are reproducible by simply (re-)inserting an SD card. Tried two different cards, both showed the same behavior.
A reboot did not solve the problem.

Google produced no search results for error -110.
Searching the kernel sources narrowed the source of the message down to drivers/mmc/core/sd.c. However, I could not find the header file with the definition for error code 110.

The system was fully updated. Downgrading the kernel to linux-3.7.10-1-x86_64 solved the problem.