Nvidia-smi Tool Alert - Troubleshooting Guide

KB 265938 - Nvidia-smi Tool Alert - Troubleshooting Guide

Purpose

This document provides a standardized approach for handling and troubleshooting the Nvidia-smi Tool alert, including L1 and L2 actions, escalation guidelines, and resolution criteria.

Alert Name

Nvidia-smi Tool

Alert Description

This alert is triggered when the nvidia-smi command fails to execute successfully on a node.

The alert indicates a potential issue with:
  1. NVIDIA driver stack
  2. GPU communication
  3. System-level GPU services or state
Failure of this command may result in:
  1. Inability to monitor GPU health
  2. GPU workloads being impacted
  3. Loss of visibility into GPU utilization and errors

Severity

P3 – Medium Impact

  1. No immediate outage, but GPU observability or performance may be affected
  2. Requires timely investigation to prevent escalation

Possible Causes

  1. NVIDIA drivers not installed or corrupted
  2. GPU not detected by OS
  3. NVIDIA persistence daemon not running
  4. Kernel module issues
  5. Hardware or PCIe communication failure
  6. Recent system changes or updates

L1 Engineer Actions

Step 1 – Log the Alert

  1. Log in to the affected node
  2. Validate the alert
  3. Wait for 15-20 minutes if alert gets auto resolved or false alarm.

Step 2 – Create Ticket

  1. Verify if the issue persists
  2. Capture error output (if any)
  3. Create an internal ticket with:
    1. Error output
    2. Observations
    3. Node details

Step 3 – Escalation (If required)

  1. Inform L2 team immediately
  2. Share all collected details and logs

Step 4 – Documentation

  1. Update Alert Summary with:
    1. Observations
    2. Error messages
  2. After L2 confirmation, update:
    1. Issue Master Sheet / Issue Tracking Sheet

L2 Engineer Actions

Step 1 – Check NVIDIA Persistence Service

systemctl status nvidia-persistenced

  1. Ensure the service is active (running)
  2. Restart if required
systemctl restart nvidia-persistenced

Step 2 – Verify NVIDIA Driver Status

nvidia-smi

  1. If still failing:
lsmod | grep nvidia

  1. Confirm NVIDIA kernel modules are loaded
  2. Check for driver mismatch or failure

Step 3 – Check System Logs

dmesg | grep -i nvidia
journalctl -xe | grep -i nvidia
  1. Identify driver errors or hardware-related issues.

Step 4 – Validate GPU Detection

lspci | grep -i nvidia
  1. Ensure GPU is visible at hardware level.

Step 5 – OEM Escalation (If required)

  1. If issue persists after troubleshooting:
    1. Create a ticket with OEM
    2. Share logs, output, and observations.

Resolution

The issue is considered resolved when:

  • nvidia-smi executes successfully
  • GPU details are displayed correctly
  • No related errors are observed in system logs

Escalation

  1. Internal Escalation: L1 → L2 with complete logs and observations
  2. External Escalation: L2 → OEM (if hardware/driver issue persists