diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 80ee3eea8db..87d7e7e12d2 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -598,6 +598,9 @@ Release 2.5.0 - UNRELEASED
     NativeAzureFileSystem#NativeAzureFsInputStream#close().
     (Chen He via cnauroth)
 
+    HADOOP-10746. TestSocketIOWithTimeout#testSocketIOWithTimeout fails on
+    Power PC. (Jinghui Wang via Arpit Agarwal)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HADOOP-10514 SUBTASKS AND RELATED JIRAS
 
     HADOOP-10520. Extended attributes definition and FileSystem APIs for
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/Shell.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/Shell.java
index e6f24a87764..69ac088fca9 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/Shell.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/util/Shell.java
@@ -126,6 +126,9 @@ abstract public class Shell {
   public static final boolean LINUX   = (osType == OSType.OS_TYPE_LINUX);
   public static final boolean OTHER   = (osType == OSType.OS_TYPE_OTHER);
 
+  public static final boolean PPC_64
+                = System.getProperties().getProperty("os.arch").contains("ppc64");
+
   /** a Unix command to get the current user's groups list */
   public static String[] getGroupsCommand() {
     return (WINDOWS)? new String[]{"cmd", "/c", "groups"}
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/net/TestSocketIOWithTimeout.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/net/TestSocketIOWithTimeout.java
index 476525bee67..f29fcf9ab5e 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/net/TestSocketIOWithTimeout.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/net/TestSocketIOWithTimeout.java
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ public class TestSocketIOWithTimeout {
       // simulate a partial write scenario.  Attempts were made to switch the
       // test from using a pipe to a network socket and also to use larger and
       // larger buffers in doIO.  Nothing helped the situation though.
-      if (!Shell.WINDOWS) {
+      if (!Shell.WINDOWS && !Shell.PPC_64) {
         try {
           out.write(1);
           fail("Did not throw");