The problem lies in the slow path sg_io (and perhaps sg_scsi_ioctl) call to
blk_get_request->get_request/wait->blk_alloc_request->blk_rq_init which
re-initializes the request->cpu to -1. There is no assignment for cpu from
that to the request_fn call to low level drivers.
When this happens, the sc->request->cpu will be using the init value of
-1. This will create a kernel panic when it hits bnx2i because the code
refers it to get the per_cpu variables ptr.
This change is to put in a guard against that and also for cases when
bio affinity/queue completion to the same cpu is not enabled. In those
cases, the request->cpu will remain a -1 also.