diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-c2c.c b/tools/perf/builtin-c2c.c
index f060dfbe11c2..cfc1ebe8c0af 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-c2c.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-c2c.c
@@ -2371,6 +2371,10 @@ static int setup_nodes(struct perf_session *session)
 		nodes[node] = set;
 
 		perf_cpu_map__for_each_cpu_skip_any(cpu, idx, map) {
+			/* topology CPU IDs from perf.data may exceed nr_cpus_avail */
+			if (cpu.cpu < 0 || cpu.cpu >= c2c.cpus_cnt)
+				continue;
+
 			__set_bit(cpu.cpu, set);
 
 			if (WARN_ONCE(cpu2node[cpu.cpu] != -1, "node/cpu topology bug"))