diff --git a/unsloth_zoo/temporary_patches/utils.py b/unsloth_zoo/temporary_patches/utils.py
index b1acd0c2d..b165a72c2 100644
--- a/unsloth_zoo/temporary_patches/utils.py
+++ b/unsloth_zoo/temporary_patches/utils.py
@@ -244,7 +244,27 @@ def find_module(self, fullname, path=None):   # Python < 3.12 compat shim
         return None
 
 
-if "torchao" not in _sys_rocm_stub.modules:
+# Only Windows + ROCm (HIP) PyTorch actually needs this stub: that is the one
+# build where `import torchao` crashes on the missing torch.distributed
+# C-extension stack. On every other platform a failing `import torchao` simply
+# means torchao is not installed -- transformers handles that correctly on its
+# own. Installing the stub there is actively harmful: transformers'
+# is_torchao_available() would then read torchao.__version__, get a sentinel
+# class, and crash in packaging.version.parse() with
+# "'_ROCmSentinelMeta' object is not iterable".
+_is_windows_rocm = False
+if _sys_rocm_stub.platform == "win32":
+    try:
+        import torch as _torch_rocm_probe
+        _is_windows_rocm = bool(
+            getattr(getattr(_torch_rocm_probe, "version", None), "hip", None)
+            or "rocm" in getattr(_torch_rocm_probe, "__version__", "").lower()
+        )
+        del _torch_rocm_probe
+    except Exception:
+        _is_windows_rocm = False
+
+if _is_windows_rocm and "torchao" not in _sys_rocm_stub.modules:
     try:
         import torchao  # noqa: F401
     except Exception:
@@ -256,6 +276,7 @@ def find_module(self, fullname, path=None):   # Python < 3.12 compat shim
 # alive -- the loader and sentinel classes call them at runtime.
 del _ROCmTorchaoLoader, _ROCmTorchaoFinder
 del _MetaPathFinder, _Loader, _ModuleSpec, _sys_rocm_stub, _types_rocm_stub
+del _is_windows_rocm
 
 try:
     from transformers.processing_utils import Unpack