diff --git a/hw/virtio.c b/hw/virtio.c
index d9bf266492..7011b5b398 100644
--- a/hw/virtio.c
+++ b/hw/virtio.c
@@ -16,20 +16,12 @@
 #include "trace.h"
 #include "qemu-error.h"
 #include "virtio.h"
+#include "qemu-barrier.h"
 
 /* The alignment to use between consumer and producer parts of vring.
  * x86 pagesize again. */
 #define VIRTIO_PCI_VRING_ALIGN         4096
 
-/* QEMU doesn't strictly need write barriers since everything runs in
- * lock-step.  We'll leave the calls to wmb() in though to make it obvious for
- * KVM or if kqemu gets SMP support.
- * In any case, we must prevent the compiler from reordering the code.
- * TODO: we likely need some rmb()/mb() as well.
- */
-
-#define wmb() __asm__ __volatile__("": : :"memory")
-
 typedef struct VRingDesc
 {
     uint64_t addr;
@@ -264,7 +256,7 @@ void virtqueue_flush(VirtQueue *vq, unsigned int count)
 {
     uint16_t old, new;
     /* Make sure buffer is written before we update index. */
-    wmb();
+    smp_wmb();
     trace_virtqueue_flush(vq, count);
     old = vring_used_idx(vq);
     new = old + count;
@@ -324,7 +316,7 @@ static unsigned virtqueue_next_desc(target_phys_addr_t desc_pa,
     /* Check they're not leading us off end of descriptors. */
     next = vring_desc_next(desc_pa, i);
     /* Make sure compiler knows to grab that: we don't want it changing! */
-    wmb();
+    smp_wmb();
 
     if (next >= max) {
         error_report("Desc next is %u", next);