diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index c834d78d..52cbe225 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ What's new in psycopg 2.4.7
     failing to connect (from :ticket:`#192` discussion).
   - 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 overflow opening a lobject with an oid not fitting in a signed int
     (:ticket:`#203`).
   - Fixed possible segfault in named cursors creation.
diff --git a/psycopg/pqpath.c b/psycopg/pqpath.c
index 7290ad33..76032ec8 100644
--- a/psycopg/pqpath.c
+++ b/psycopg/pqpath.c
@@ -388,12 +388,20 @@ pq_complete_error(connectionObject *conn, PGresult **pgres, char **error)
 {
     Dprintf("pq_complete_error: pgconn = %p, pgres = %p, error = %s",
             conn->pgconn, *pgres, *error ? *error : "(null)");
-    if (*pgres != NULL)
+    if (*pgres != NULL) {
         pq_raise(conn, NULL, *pgres);
-    else if (*error != NULL) {
-        PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, *error);
     } else {
-        PyErr_SetString(OperationalError, "unknown error");
+        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;
     }
     IFCLEARPGRES(*pgres);
     if (*error) {