diff --git a/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-taos-evm.c b/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-taos-evm.c
index 4c7fc2d47014f214c2a316189d75fb8869c0ae1d..210ca82f8aa05d24068ea7d6c77b8d915a600813 100644
--- a/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-taos-evm.c
+++ b/drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-taos-evm.c
@@ -130,7 +130,13 @@ static int taos_smbus_xfer(struct i2c_adapter *adapter, u16 addr,
 			return 0;
 	} else {
 		if (p[0] == 'x') {
-			data->byte = simple_strtol(p + 1, NULL, 16);
+			/*
+			 * Voluntarily dropping error code of kstrtou8 since all
+			 * error code that it could return are invalid according
+			 * to Documentation/i2c/fault-codes.
+			 */
+			if (kstrtou8(p + 1, 16, &data->byte))
+				return -EPROTO;
 			return 0;
 		}
 	}