diff --git a/tests/test_hwtimer_spin/main.c b/tests/test_hwtimer_spin/main.c
index 87a4c9501a4d4..d391651d54f4f 100644
--- a/tests/test_hwtimer_spin/main.c
+++ b/tests/test_hwtimer_spin/main.c
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ int main(void)
     printf("when the race condition is hit, hwtimer will wait a very very long time...\n");
 
     while (1) {
-        for (unsigned long i = 256; i; i = i >> 1) {
+        for (unsigned long i = 6; i; i = i >> 1) {
             printf("wait %lu\n", i);
             hwtimer_wait(i);
         }