diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/models.py b/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
index 261acd934..c2fbc19e3 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/models.py
@@ -355,6 +355,7 @@ def load_model(
             if hasattr(module, "weight"):
                 module.to(torch.float32)
 
+    needs_fa2_dtype = cfg.adapter is not None
     if not cfg.gptq and (
         (cfg.adapter == "lora" and load_in_8bit)
         or (cfg.adapter == "qlora" and cfg.load_in_4bit)
@@ -363,16 +364,18 @@ def load_model(
         model = prepare_model_for_kbit_training(
             model, use_gradient_checkpointing=cfg.gradient_checkpointing
         )
+        needs_fa2_dtype = True
 
-        # LlamaRMSNorm layers are in fp32 after kbit_training, so we need to
-        # convert them back to fp16/bf16 for flash-attn compatibility.
-        if cfg.flash_attention and cfg.is_llama_derived_model:
-            for name, module in model.named_modules():
-                if "norm" in name:
+    # LlamaRMSNorm layers are in fp32 after kbit_training or full finetune, so we need to
+    # convert them back to fp16/bf16 for flash-attn compatibility.
+    if needs_fa2_dtype and (cfg.flash_attention and cfg.is_llama_derived_model):
+        LOG.info("converting modules to %s for flash attention", cfg.torch_dtype)
+        for name, module in model.named_modules():
+            if "norm" in name:
+                module.to(cfg.torch_dtype)
+            if "lm_head" in name or "embed_tokens" in name:
+                if hasattr(module, "weight"):
                     module.to(cfg.torch_dtype)
-                if "lm_head" in name or "embed_tokens" in name:
-                    if hasattr(module, "weight"):
-                        module.to(cfg.torch_dtype)
 
     model, lora_config = load_adapter(model, cfg, cfg.adapter)