Tesla M60 uses 8 pin EPS connector with “Molex Mini-Fit” plug. It is different than PCIe 6+2/8 pin plug! It's actually the same as 8 pin CPU connector on motherboard.

Do not force PCIe 6+2 plug into Tesla M60! Look what might happen if you do: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/uqfq69/psa_nvidia_tesla_cards_do_not_use_the_same_power/

Based on https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/tesla/driver-installation-guide/debian.html

Installed and tested as of 23-05-2026

# apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

In /etc/apt/sources.list add contrib keyword to debian repository, update cache with apt update.

Replaced ${distro} with debian12

# wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64/cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb
# dpkg -i cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb
# apt update

To find which version you should use, go to https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/ and select proper entries in drop-down menus, to select your nvidia tesla model. Then, click on find, and note the supported version. In my case, it's 580.159.04

If you can't install the package with specified version, try looking at what packages are available using apt search nvidia-driver-pinning-*

This step is not optional! By default, apt will install newest driver (with highest version number), which might not be compatible! In such case, remove those packages with apt purge nvidia-driver-cuda nvidia-kernel-dkms, pin version, and install those packages again.

# apt install nvidia-driver-pinning-580.159.04

This command install proprietary kernel modules for compute-only drivers. If you want to use other options, see https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/tesla/driver-installation-guide/debian.html#driver-installation

# apt -V install nvidia-driver-cuda nvidia-kernel-dkms

Your Tesla should now be visible in nvidia-smi.

Sat May 23 18:20:54 2026       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.159.04             Driver Version: 580.159.04     CUDA Version: 13.0     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| 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  Tesla M60                      Off |   00000000:30:00.0 Off |                  Off |
| N/A   67C    P0             42W /  150W |       0MiB /   8192MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
|   1  Tesla M60                      Off |   00000000:31:00.0 Off |                  Off |
| N/A   66C    P0             40W /  150W |       0MiB /   8192MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+