How to Fine-Tune an LLM on a Consumer GPU: LoRA and QLoRA Guide [2026]

Your desktop has an RTX 3060 with 12GB of VRAM. Or maybe an old laptop with a 4GB card. You want to teach an LLM your domain — your codebase&rsquo;s conventions, your support tickets, your writing voice. Every tutorial you find starts with &ldquo;provision an A100 with 80GB&rdquo; or &ldquo;rent a cluster&rdquo;. So you assume fine-tuning is out of reach. It isn&rsquo;t. In 2026, fine-tuning a…