diff --git a/src/diffusers/schedulers/scheduling_ddpm.py b/src/diffusers/schedulers/scheduling_ddpm.py
index 972c46c6e930..345bc7e96b6c 100644
--- a/src/diffusers/schedulers/scheduling_ddpm.py
+++ b/src/diffusers/schedulers/scheduling_ddpm.py
@@ -308,6 +308,8 @@ def set_timesteps(
             timesteps = np.array(timesteps, dtype=np.int64)
             self.custom_timesteps = True
         else:
+            if num_inference_steps <= 0:
+                raise ValueError(f"`num_inference_steps`: {num_inference_steps} must be a positive integer.")
             if num_inference_steps > self.config.num_train_timesteps:
                 raise ValueError(
                     f"`num_inference_steps`: {num_inference_steps} cannot be larger than `self.config.train_timesteps`:"