diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.c
index 04b52bf347bf..fa65ec9e16f1 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_request.c
@@ -1128,14 +1128,45 @@ __i915_request_await_execution(struct i915_request *to,
 					  &from->fence))
 		return 0;
 
-	/* Ensure both start together [after all semaphores in signal] */
-	if (intel_engine_has_semaphores(to->engine))
-		err = __emit_semaphore_wait(to, from, from->fence.seqno - 1);
-	else
-		err = i915_request_await_start(to, from);
+	/*
+	 * Wait until the start of this request.
+	 *
+	 * The execution cb fires when we submit the request to HW. But in
+	 * many cases this may be long before the request itself is ready to
+	 * run (consider that we submit 2 requests for the same context, where
+	 * the request of interest is behind an indefinite spinner). So we hook
+	 * up to both to reduce our queues and keep the execution lag minimised
+	 * in the worst case, though we hope that the await_start is elided.
+	 */
+	err = i915_request_await_start(to, from);
 	if (err < 0)
 		return err;
 
+	/*
+	 * Ensure both start together [after all semaphores in signal]
+	 *
+	 * Now that we are queued to the HW at roughly the same time (thanks
+	 * to the execute cb) and are ready to run at roughly the same time
+	 * (thanks to the await start), our signaler may still be indefinitely
+	 * delayed by waiting on a semaphore from a remote engine. If our
+	 * signaler depends on a semaphore, so indirectly do we, and we do not
+	 * want to start our payload until our signaler also starts theirs.
+	 * So we wait.
+	 *
+	 * However, there is also a second condition for which we need to wait
+	 * for the precise start of the signaler. Consider that the signaler
+	 * was submitted in a chain of requests following another context
+	 * (with just an ordinary intra-engine fence dependency between the
+	 * two). In this case the signaler is queued to HW, but not for
+	 * immediate execution, and so we must wait until it reaches the
+	 * active slot.
+	 */
+	if (intel_engine_has_semaphores(to->engine)) {
+		err = __emit_semaphore_wait(to, from, from->fence.seqno - 1);
+		if (err < 0)
+			return err;
+	}
+
 	/* Couple the dependency tree for PI on this exposed to->fence */
 	if (to->engine->schedule) {
 		err = i915_sched_node_add_dependency(&to->sched, &from->sched);