I am not expert, but after a bunch of trial and error with Gemini i was able to get my 1070 functioning. I am going to paste the steps that Gemini gave me.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
I was doing this on a fresh install so there was no data for me to lose. If someone who knows what they are doing posts a better comment I will remove this. Again this is AI generated, but it did work for me.
If you are running an older NVIDIA card (like a GTX 1070, 1080, etc.) and nvidia-smi is failing with a "communication error" after the latest update, it's because the new default Open Kernel drivers do not support your architecture.
Follow these steps to manually inject the proprietary legacy driver.
Step 1: Download the Legacy Driver
First, we need to grab the driver extension file. (Note: Ensure the version in the URL matches your current TrueNAS SCALE base version).
Bash
wget -O /tmp/nvidia.raw https://truenas-drivers.zhouyou.info/25.10.2.1/nvidia.raw
Step 2: Prepare the System
We need to "unstack" the current (broken) driver extensions and temporarily unlock the read-only system directory to place the new file.
Bash
sudo systemd-sysext unmerge
sudo zfs set readonly=off "$(zfs list -H -o name /usr)"
Step 3: Install the Extension
Move the driver file into the official system extension folder so it persists and becomes part of the system hierarchy.
Bash
sudo cp /tmp/nvidia.raw /usr/share/truenas/sysext-extensions/nvidia.raw
Step 4: Lock and Merge
Set the system back to read-only for security and merge the new driver extension.
Bash
sudo zfs set readonly=on "$(zfs list -H -o name /usr)"
sudo systemd-sysext merge
Step 5: Initialize the Device Nodes
Sometimes the system needs a manual nudge to create the necessary communication nodes for the driver.
Bash
sudo mknod -m 666 /dev/nvidia-modeset c 195 254
Step 6: Verify
Run the following command. If you see the ASCII table showing your GPU and driver version, you are successful!
Bash
nvidia-smi
Note: You may need to restart your Apps (like Jellyfin or Plex) to ensure they pick up the "new" hardware hook. In the App configuration, ensure you have allocated 1 NVIDIA GPU.
