diff --git a/server/text_generation_server/utils/layers.py b/server/text_generation_server/utils/layers.py
index b9b1dfac..01e32588 100644
--- a/server/text_generation_server/utils/layers.py
+++ b/server/text_generation_server/utils/layers.py
@@ -354,6 +354,8 @@ def get_linear(weight, bias, quantize):
                 "AWQ GEMM kernel can't be used on ROCm systems, please use `--quantize gptq` instead "
                 "to use Exllama/GPTQ kernels for AWQ inference."
             )
+        if not HAS_AWQ:
+            raise NotImplementedError("You do not seem to have awq installed, either install it (cd server &&  make install-awq), or try using GPTQ `---quantize gptq` a conversion AWQ->GPTQ will happen on the fly")
         linear = WQLinear(
             w_bit=bits,
             group_size=groupsize,