diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 24615fa22..9e1af318d 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ from huggingface_hub.errors import LocalEntryNotFoundError
 from tokenizers import AddedToken
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 
+from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
+
 from tests.hf_offline_utils import (
     enable_hf_offline,
     hf_offline_context,
@@ -539,6 +541,22 @@ def dataset_fozziethebeat_alpaca_messages_2k_dpo_test_rev_ea82cff(
     return datasets.load_from_disk(ds_path)["train"]
 
 
+@pytest.fixture(name="min_base_cfg")
+def fixture_min_base_cfg():
+    return DictDefault(
+        base_model="HuggingFaceTB/SmolLM2-135M",
+        learning_rate=1e-3,
+        datasets=[
+            {
+                "path": "mhenrichsen/alpaca_2k_test",
+                "type": "alpaca",
+            },
+        ],
+        micro_batch_size=1,
+        gradient_accumulation_steps=1,
+    )
+
+
 # # pylint: disable=redefined-outer-name,unused-argument
 @pytest.mark.skipif(
     os.environ.get("AXOLOTL_IS_CI_CACHE_PRELOAD", "-1") != "1",
diff --git a/tests/test_train.py b/tests/test_train.py
index 291e9136b..2c29b58ee 100644
--- a/tests/test_train.py
+++ b/tests/test_train.py
@@ -7,21 +7,16 @@ from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 
 
 @pytest.fixture(name="train_base_cfg")
-def fixture_train_base_cfg():
-    return DictDefault(
-        base_model="gpt2",
-        learning_rate=1e-3,
-        datasets=[
-            {
-                "path": "mhenrichsen/alpaca_2k_test",
-                "type": "alpaca",
-            },
-        ],
-        micro_batch_size=2,
-        gradient_accumulation_steps=4,
-        sequence_len=2048,
-        sample_packing=True,
-        num_epochs=1,
+def fixture_train_base_cfg(min_base_cfg):
+    return (
+        DictDefault(
+            micro_batch_size=2,
+            gradient_accumulation_steps=4,
+            sequence_len=2048,
+            sample_packing=True,
+            num_epochs=1,
+        )
+        | min_base_cfg
     )
 
 
diff --git a/tests/utils/schemas/validation/test_fsdp.py b/tests/utils/schemas/validation/test_fsdp.py
index 456040bc1..67f4a5cf9 100644
--- a/tests/utils/schemas/validation/test_fsdp.py
+++ b/tests/utils/schemas/validation/test_fsdp.py
@@ -9,29 +9,13 @@ from axolotl.utils.config import validate_config
 from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 
 
-@pytest.fixture(name="fsdp_base_cfg")
-def fixture_fsdp_base_cfg():
-    return DictDefault(
-        base_model="gpt2",
-        learning_rate=1e-3,
-        datasets=[
-            {
-                "path": "mhenrichsen/alpaca_2k_test",
-                "type": "alpaca",
-            },
-        ],
-        micro_batch_size=1,
-        gradient_accumulation_steps=1,
-    )
-
-
 class TestFSDPValidation:
     """
     test class for pydantic fsdp validation
     """
 
-    def test_fsdp_version_in_fsdp_config(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp_version_in_fsdp_config(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "fsdp_version": 2,
             },
@@ -42,8 +26,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
         assert cfg.fsdp_version == 2
         assert cfg.fsdp_config.fsdp_version is None
 
-    def test_fsdp_sharded_state_dict_safetensors(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp_sharded_state_dict_safetensors(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "fsdp_state_dict_type": "SHARDED_STATE_DICT",
             },
@@ -56,7 +40,7 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
             validate_config(cfg)
 
         # test w/o prefix too
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "state_dict_type": "SHARDED_STATE_DICT",
             },
@@ -68,8 +52,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
         ):
             validate_config(cfg)
 
-    def test_fsdp_offload_w_8bit_optim(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp_offload_w_8bit_optim(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "offload_params": True,
             },
@@ -81,8 +65,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
         ):
             validate_config(cfg)
 
-    def test_fsdp2_w_8bit_optim(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp2_w_8bit_optim(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "offload_params": True,
             },
@@ -95,8 +79,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
         ):
             validate_config(cfg)
 
-    def test_fsdp2_w_cpu_ram_efficient_loading(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp2_w_cpu_ram_efficient_loading(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             load_in_8bit=True,
             adapter="lora",
             fsdp_config={
@@ -110,8 +94,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
         ):
             validate_config(cfg)
 
-    def test_fsdp_prefixes_removed(self, fsdp_base_cfg):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp_prefixes_removed(self, min_base_cfg):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_config={
                 "fsdp_version": 2,
                 "fsdp_auto_wrap_policy": "TRANSFORMER_BASED_WRAP",
@@ -137,8 +121,8 @@ class TestFSDPValidation:
             "ipo",
         ],
     )
-    def test_fsdp2_dpo(self, fsdp_base_cfg, rl):
-        cfg = fsdp_base_cfg | DictDefault(
+    def test_fsdp2_dpo(self, min_base_cfg, rl):
+        cfg = min_base_cfg | DictDefault(
             fsdp_version=2,
             fsdp_config={
                 "reshard_after_forward": True,