diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index b229795d..e0dd56e8 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ What's new in psycopg 2.5.3
   (:ticket:`#203`).
 - Don't segfault using poorly defined cursor subclasses which forgot to call
   the superclass init (:ticket:`#195`).
+- Mark the connection closed when a Socket connection is broken, as it
+  happens for TCP connections instead (:ticket:`#196`).
 - Fixed possible segfault in named cursors creation.
 - It is now possible to call `get_transaction_status()` on closed connections.
 - Fixed debug build on Windows, thanks to James Emerton.
diff --git a/psycopg/pqpath.c b/psycopg/pqpath.c
index 86709657..0e9481a5 100644
--- a/psycopg/pqpath.c
+++ b/psycopg/pqpath.c
@@ -417,10 +417,18 @@ pq_complete_error(connectionObject *conn, PGresult **pgres, char **error)
         pq_raise(conn, NULL, pgres);
         /* now *pgres is null */
     }
-    else if (*error != NULL) {
-        PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, *error);
-    } else {
-        PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, "unknown error");
+    else {
+        if (*error != NULL) {
+            PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, *error);
+        } else {
+            PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, "unknown error");
+        }
+        /* Trivia: with a broken socket connection PQexec returns NULL, so we
+         * end up here. With a TCP connection we get a pgres with an error
+         * instead, and the connection gets closed in the pq_raise call above
+         * (see ticket #196)
+         */
+        conn->closed = 2;
     }
 
     if (*error) {