diff --git a/collector/cpu_freebsd.go b/collector/cpu_freebsd.go
index 29748f11..0ede1a69 100644
--- a/collector/cpu_freebsd.go
+++ b/collector/cpu_freebsd.go
@@ -103,6 +103,8 @@ void freeCPUTimes(double *cpu_times) {
 */
 import "C"
 
+const maxCPUTimesLen = C.MAXCPU * C.CPUSTATES
+
 type statCollector struct {
 	cpu *prometheus.CounterVec
 }
@@ -150,9 +152,12 @@ func (c *statCollector) Update(ch chan<- prometheus.Metric) (err error) {
 		return errors.New("could not retrieve CPU times")
 	}
 	defer C.freeCPUTimes(cpuTimesC)
+	if cpuTimesLength > maxCPUTimesLen {
+		return errors.New("more CPU's than MAXCPU?")
+	}
 
 	// Convert C.double array to Go array (https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/cgo#turning-c-arrays-into-go-slices).
-	cpuTimes := (*[1 << 30]C.double)(unsafe.Pointer(cpuTimesC))[:cpuTimesLength:cpuTimesLength]
+	cpuTimes := (*[maxCPUTimesLen]C.double)(unsafe.Pointer(cpuTimesC))[:cpuTimesLength:cpuTimesLength]
 
 	for cpu := 0; cpu < int(ncpu); cpu++ {
 		base_idx := C.CPUSTATES * cpu