diff --git a/lib/test_user_copy.c b/lib/test_user_copy.c
index ad2372727b1b..5ff04d8fe971 100644
--- a/lib/test_user_copy.c
+++ b/lib/test_user_copy.c
@@ -47,9 +47,25 @@ static bool is_zeroed(void *from, size_t size)
 static int test_check_nonzero_user(char *kmem, char __user *umem, size_t size)
 {
 	int ret = 0;
-	size_t start, end, i;
-	size_t zero_start = size / 4;
-	size_t zero_end = size - zero_start;
+	size_t start, end, i, zero_start, zero_end;
+
+	if (test(size < 2 * PAGE_SIZE, "buffer too small"))
+		return -EINVAL;
+
+	/*
+	 * We want to cross a page boundary to exercise the code more
+	 * effectively. We also don't want to make the size we scan too large,
+	 * otherwise the test can take a long time and cause soft lockups. So
+	 * scan a 1024 byte region across the page boundary.
+	 */
+	size = 1024;
+	start = PAGE_SIZE - (size / 2);
+
+	kmem += start;
+	umem += start;
+
+	zero_start = size / 4;
+	zero_end = size - zero_start;
 
 	/*
 	 * We conduct a series of check_nonzero_user() tests on a block of