# SOLVED - RmInitAdapter failed! to load 530.41.03 (or any nvidia modules other than 450.236.01) Linux via ESXi 7.0u3 Passthrough PCI GTX 1650

**URL:** <https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/solved-rminitadapter-failed-to-load-530-41-03-or-any-nvidia-modules-other-than-450-236-01-linux-via-esxi-7-0u3-passthrough-pci-gtx-1650/253239>\
**Category:** Linux\
**Tags:** esxi, ubuntu, linux\
**Created:** [May 14, 2023, 12:19pm UTC](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/solved-rminitadapter-failed-to-load-530-41-03-or-any-nvidia-modules-other-than-450-236-01-linux-via-esxi-7-0u3-passthrough-pci-gtx-1650/253239 "2023-05-14T12:19:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![furrious](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/forums/profile-default-devtalk-84.png) [@furrious](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/u/furrious)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2023, 5:11pm UTC](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/solved-rminitadapter-failed-to-load-530-41-03-or-any-nvidia-modules-other-than-450-236-01-linux-via-esxi-7-0u3-passthrough-pci-gtx-1650/253239/2 "2023-05-14T17:11:59Z")

</div>

Looks like I was able to answer my own question. I hope this helps someone in the future.

**The solution**  
You need to use _open_ NVIDIA drivers. To do this, pick the version you want to use from the NVIDIA website, then to install it properly, run the following:

```auto
sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-525.116.04.run -m=kernel-open
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

```

The critical part is the _-m=kernel-open_ part.

I used 525.116.04 but I have confidence it will work for ANY supported version.

I’m also going to include my purge all NVIDIA drivers script here for anyone who wants to ensure they do this with a clean install on Ubuntu:

**purge-nvidia.sh (run this BEFORE any new driver install)**

```auto
sudo nvidia-uninstall
sudo apt purge -y '^nvidia-*' '^libnvidia-*'
sudo rm -r /var/lib/dkms/nvidia
sudo apt -y autoremove
sudo update-initramfs -c -k `uname -r`
sudo update-grub2
read -p "Press any key to reboot... " -n1 -s
sudo reboot

```

**My now working nvidia-smi**

```auto
fetch@fetch:~$ nvidia-smi
Sun May 14 10:14:10 2023
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 525.116.04 Driver Version: 525.116.04 CUDA Version: 12.0 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:0B:00.0 Off | N/A |
| 52% 52C P2 N/A / 75W | 582MiB / 4096MiB | 5% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 4911 C ...diaserver/Plex Transcoder 578MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

```

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_[View the full topic](https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/solved-rminitadapter-failed-to-load-530-41-03-or-any-nvidia-modules-other-than-450-236-01-linux-via-esxi-7-0u3-passthrough-pci-gtx-1650/253239)._