diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gem_submit.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gem_submit.c
index a1d539d8fb58..924b01b9c105 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gem_submit.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/msm_gem_submit.c
@@ -330,7 +330,8 @@ static int submit_fence_sync(struct msm_gem_submit *submit, bool no_implicit)
 				return ret;
 		}
 
-		if (no_implicit)
+		/* exclusive fences must be ordered */
+		if (no_implicit && !write)
 			continue;
 
 		ret = drm_sched_job_add_implicit_dependencies(&submit->base,