diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_connector.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_connector.c
index 51932c72334ef6529abb18bc44762cc01ba2d176..31b31a35c8fe589bd94fadc324aee2950595e07d 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_connector.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_connector.c
@@ -555,12 +555,16 @@ nouveau_connector_detect(struct drm_connector *connector, bool force)
 		nv_connector->edid = NULL;
 	}
 
-	/* Outputs are only polled while runtime active, so acquiring a
-	 * runtime PM ref here is unnecessary (and would deadlock upon
-	 * runtime suspend because it waits for polling to finish).
+	/* Outputs are only polled while runtime active, so resuming the
+	 * device here is unnecessary (and would deadlock upon runtime suspend
+	 * because it waits for polling to finish). We do however, want to
+	 * prevent the autosuspend timer from elapsing during this operation
+	 * if possible.
 	 */
-	if (!drm_kms_helper_is_poll_worker()) {
-		ret = pm_runtime_get_sync(connector->dev->dev);
+	if (drm_kms_helper_is_poll_worker()) {
+		pm_runtime_get_noresume(dev->dev);
+	} else {
+		ret = pm_runtime_get_sync(dev->dev);
 		if (ret < 0 && ret != -EACCES)
 			return conn_status;
 	}
@@ -638,10 +642,8 @@ nouveau_connector_detect(struct drm_connector *connector, bool force)
 
  out:
 
-	if (!drm_kms_helper_is_poll_worker()) {
-		pm_runtime_mark_last_busy(connector->dev->dev);
-		pm_runtime_put_autosuspend(connector->dev->dev);
-	}
+	pm_runtime_mark_last_busy(dev->dev);
+	pm_runtime_put_autosuspend(dev->dev);
 
 	return conn_status;
 }