nvidia-smi "No devices were found" on Zephyrus GU605 (2025) with Fedora 42 KDE

[_marceline_]

I got a new Zephyrus GU605CW and thought I would try Fedora, I've been in Ubuntu for decades, but the first Ubuntu install in this new laptop was struggling with the new hardware. So here is to the opportunity of learning the Fedora landscape.

First I followed the instructions from https://github.com/devangshekhawat/Fedora-42-Post-Install-Guide, and when that failed I tried from https://forum.level1techs.com/t/cuda-12-9-on-fedora-42-guide-including-getting-cuda-samples-running/... consulting also https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA and https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/CUDA

Right after installing it wouldn't shut down due to the SD card reader spamming PCI BUS errors, so I added pci=noaer to the grub. That solved that part. Another thing I learned was the for the newer drivers/cards I needed the open kernel driver not the non-free (see logs below). I also disabled secure boot before installing Ubuntu on the first day. And found a discussion about enabling and disabling ReBar in the BIOS. However, my BIOS does not have any graphics card options (see picture). I updated the BIOS to 306 but it looks exactly the same.

Now, to the main issue, I need to be able to set up cuda drivers to develop with tensorflow/pytorch, whether it's with a container or native and all the guides. So this is where I'm at. After restarting for the Nth time, nvidia-smi still doesn't find the card:
$ nvidia-smi
No devices were found

Here are some outputs that I tried to use to diagnose the problem, maybe someone smarter than me can figure out why my drivers aren't loading properly:

$ mokutil --sb-state
SecureBoot disabled

$ lsmod | grep -E "nvidia|nouveau"
nvidia_drm 159744 0
nvidia_modeset 2162688 1 nvidia_drm
nvidia_uvm 4218880 0
nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight 12288 0
nvidia 12947456 2 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_modeset
drm_ttm_helper 16384 2 nvidia_drm,xe
video 81920 6 nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight,asus_wmi,asus_nb_wmi,xe,i915,nvidia_modeset
wmi 32768 4 video,nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight,asus_wmi,wmi_bmof

$ rpm -qa | grep -i nvidia
nvidia-gpu-firmware-20250509-1.fc42.noarch
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
nvidia-modprobe-575.57.08-1.fc42.x86_64
nvidia-settings-575.57.08-1.fc42.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
akmod-nvidia-open-575.57.08-1.fc42.x86_64
libva-nvidia-driver-0.0.13^20250419gitc2860cc-1.fc42.x86_64
nvidia-persistenced-575.57.08-1.fc42.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
kmod-nvidia-6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
kmod-nvidia-open-6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64-575.57.08-1.fc42.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64
akmod-nvidia-575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64

$ dnf list --installed *nvidia*
Installed packages
akmod-nvidia.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
akmod-nvidia-open.x86_64 3:575.57.08-1.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-tainted
kmod-nvidia-6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 @commandline
kmod-nvidia-open-6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64.x86_64 3:575.57.08-1.fc42 @commandline
libva-nvidia-driver.x86_64 0.0.13^20250419gitc2860cc-1.fc42 updates
nvidia-gpu-firmware.noarch 20250509-1.fc42 updates
nvidia-modprobe.x86_64 3:575.57.08-1.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-persistenced.x86_64 3:575.57.08-1.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-settings.x86_64 3:575.57.08-1.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power.x86_64 3:575.57.08-2.fc42 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver

$ modinfo -F version nvidia
575.57.08

$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Arrow Lake-P [Intel Graphics] (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GB203M / GN22-X9 [GeForce RTX 5080 Max-Q / Mobile] (rev a1)

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX Open Kernel Module for x86_64 575.57.08 Release Build (dvs-builder@U22-I3-H04-01-5) Sat May 24 07:03:13 UTC 2025
GCC version: gcc version 15.1.1 20250521 (Red Hat 15.1.1-2) (GCC)

$ modinfo nvidia | grep license
license: Dual MIT/GPL

$ vainfo
Trying display: wayland
libva info: VA-API version 1.22.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri-nonfree/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_22
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 24.4.4 ()
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointEncPicture
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP9Profile1 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile1 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVP9Profile3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile3 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain422_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain422_12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain444 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain444 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain444_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain444_10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain444_12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCSccMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileAV1Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileAV1Profile0 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice

$ sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Package "akmod-nvidia-3:575.57.08-2.fc42.x86_64" is already installed.
Nothing to do.
$ sudo akmods --force
Checking kmods exist for 6.14.11-300.fc42.x86_64 [ OK ]

Thank you for reading 🙂

[_marceline_ · Accepted solution]

In case someone else runs into this problem, I solved it by changing the version of the drivers, details on this other thread: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/nvidia-smi-no-devices-were-found-on-zephyrus-gu605-2025-with-...