diff --git a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
index 6fce84401dba..a8da1fc5222e 100644
--- a/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
+++ b/kernel/locking/qspinlock.c
@@ -75,6 +75,18 @@
 #define MAX_NODES	4
 #endif
 
+/*
+ * The pending bit spinning loop count.
+ * This heuristic is used to limit the number of lockword accesses
+ * made by atomic_cond_read_relaxed when waiting for the lock to
+ * transition out of the "== _Q_PENDING_VAL" state. We don't spin
+ * indefinitely because there's no guarantee that we'll make forward
+ * progress.
+ */
+#ifndef _Q_PENDING_LOOPS
+#define _Q_PENDING_LOOPS	1
+#endif
+
 /*
  * Per-CPU queue node structures; we can never have more than 4 nested
  * contexts: task, softirq, hardirq, nmi.
@@ -422,13 +434,15 @@ void queued_spin_lock_slowpath(struct qspinlock *lock, u32 val)
 		return;
 
 	/*
-	 * wait for in-progress pending->locked hand-overs
+	 * Wait for in-progress pending->locked hand-overs with a bounded
+	 * number of spins so that we guarantee forward progress.
 	 *
 	 * 0,1,0 -> 0,0,1
 	 */
 	if (val == _Q_PENDING_VAL) {
-		while ((val = atomic_read(&lock->val)) == _Q_PENDING_VAL)
-			cpu_relax();
+		int cnt = _Q_PENDING_LOOPS;
+		val = smp_cond_load_acquire(&lock->val.counter,
+					       (VAL != _Q_PENDING_VAL) || !cnt--);
 	}
 
 	/*