diff --git a/drivers/staging/rdma/hfi1/verbs.c b/drivers/staging/rdma/hfi1/verbs.c
index 62755af693a265a00184f9a2127d7a4ee27b78e7..89f2aad45c1b8cfdb27d81aac73c2cd2ebd0c52f 100644
--- a/drivers/staging/rdma/hfi1/verbs.c
+++ b/drivers/staging/rdma/hfi1/verbs.c
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ unsigned int hfi1_max_srq_wrs = 0x1FFFF;
 module_param_named(max_srq_wrs, hfi1_max_srq_wrs, uint, S_IRUGO);
 MODULE_PARM_DESC(max_srq_wrs, "Maximum number of SRQ WRs support");
 
-unsigned short piothreshold;
+unsigned short piothreshold = 256;
 module_param(piothreshold, ushort, S_IRUGO);
 MODULE_PARM_DESC(piothreshold, "size used to determine sdma vs. pio");