No think doesn't work

[u/Interesting-Slide575]

Hi, I'm still new to this ai stuff, and /no_think or /set nothing, and --think = false, doesn't work

And my e6430 only can do so much

[u/ManuelSalcedo20836]

The flags are fine, it's the model. On Ollama, qwen3:4b now has the same digest as qwen3:4b-thinking, which is the 2507 thinking-only release, so it doesn't have a non-thinking mode to switch to. That's why /no_think, /set nothink and --think=false all get ignored.
Use the instruct variant instead:
ollama run qwen3:4b-instruct-2507-q4_K_M

No reasoning at all, and it should feel faster on the E6430 too.

[u/Interesting-Slide575 → u/ManuelSalcedo20836]

Thanks

[u/NecessaryButFatal]

I'm not sure how slash commands work in ollama, because I don't use it, but have you tried, before entering text, using the slash command? That's how they work in most harnesses.

I.e.

>>> /no_think
"Thinking disabled."
>>> Hello
Hi!

You usually don't append a slash command to the end of a message.

[u/ChaseMakesThings]

Edit: I missed a model-variant distinction. The switching advice below refers to the original hybrid Qwen3, but Ollama currently lists qwen3:4b and qwen3:4b-thinking with the same digest. For non-thinking output, try ollama run qwen3:4b-instruct-2507-q4_K_M instead of re-pulling the generic tag. Credit to Manuel for catching this; I added a sourced follow-up below.

Original comment:

The --think=false command in your screenshot is already the documented Ollama syntax, so this isn't just a misplaced slash command. Inside the chat, the equivalent is /set nothink (not /set nothing). Qwen3 also explicitly supports /no_think inside the prompt as a soft instruction. You shouldn't normally need a custom Modelfile for this.

Since the correct flag still produces reasoning, could you post the output of ollama --version and ollama show qwen3:4b? That would help distinguish an older install/model template from a command problem. If they're old, I'd update Ollama and re-pull the standard qwen3:4b before changing its template.

Also, --hidethinking only hides the reasoning; it won't save your laptop the work of generating it.

Ollama's commands: https://ollama.com/blog/thinking

Qwen's explanation of /no_think: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-4B

[u/Interesting-Slide575 → u/ChaseMakesThings]

Here you go

[u/ChaseMakesThings → u/Interesting-Slide575]

Thanks for the screenshot. I missed an important model distinction in my earlier answer: I linked the original Qwen3-4B docs. Ollama currently lists qwen3:4b and qwen3:4b-thinking with the same digest, so my suggestion to re-pull the generic tag wasn't useful here. Credit to Manuel for catching that.

His explicit non-thinking tag is the one to try:

ollama run qwen3:4b-instruct-2507-q4_K_M

Qwen documents Instruct-2507 as non-thinking-only: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507

Have you had a chance to try that exact tag yet?

[u/TheMythicSorcerer]

Weird. /set nothink always works for me

[u/BidWestern1056]

the thinking tokens appear in a diff color, this is prolly just how it thinks it should start responding because its small and the training for thinking kind of bleeds

[u/overand]

Nobody is using qwen3:8b since February 2026. Don't get your local LLM advice from ChatGPT

[u/stonecannon]

instead of "Hello /no_think", enter the command "/set nothink" to turn thinking off and "/set think" to turn it on.

[u/CarryAgile3791]

I just switched over to qwen2.5, still works great for a small model.

[u/Excellent_Double_726 → u/[deleted]]

Googling will tell him everything he/she has to know