diff --git a/drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re/qplib_rcfw.c b/drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re/qplib_rcfw.c
index 2852d350ada1657242d37bc521346557fd97be33..6637df77d236554a176709b7d18423387dbc07d0 100644
--- a/drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re/qplib_rcfw.c
+++ b/drivers/infiniband/hw/bnxt_re/qplib_rcfw.c
@@ -309,8 +309,17 @@ static int bnxt_qplib_process_qp_event(struct bnxt_qplib_rcfw *rcfw,
 		rcfw->aeq_handler(rcfw, qp_event, qp);
 		break;
 	default:
-		/* Command Response */
-		spin_lock_irqsave(&cmdq->lock, flags);
+		/*
+		 * Command Response
+		 * cmdq->lock needs to be acquired to synchronie
+		 * the command send and completion reaping. This function
+		 * is always called with creq->lock held. Using
+		 * the nested variant of spin_lock.
+		 *
+		 */
+
+		spin_lock_irqsave_nested(&cmdq->lock, flags,
+					 SINGLE_DEPTH_NESTING);
 		cookie = le16_to_cpu(qp_event->cookie);
 		mcookie = qp_event->cookie;
 		blocked = cookie & RCFW_CMD_IS_BLOCKING;