diff --git a/test/unit/test_helpers.py b/test/unit/test_helpers.py
index 4accd859c3..c75e8d07f0 100644
--- a/test/unit/test_helpers.py
+++ b/test/unit/test_helpers.py
@@ -209,13 +209,6 @@ class TestFetch(unittest.TestCase):
           headers={"Range": "bytes=0-100"}).read_bytes()
     assert len(x) == 101, f"{len(x) != 101}"
 
-  def test_fetch_retries(self):
-    from unittest.mock import patch
-    with patch('urllib.request.urlopen', side_effect=TimeoutError()) as mock_urlopen:
-      with self.assertRaises(TimeoutError):
-        fetch('http://example.com/test', allow_caching=False, retries=2)
-      assert mock_urlopen.call_count == 2
-
 class TestFullyFlatten(unittest.TestCase):
   def test_fully_flatten(self):
     self.assertEqual(fully_flatten([[1, 3], [1, 2]]), [1, 3, 1, 2])
diff --git a/tinygrad/helpers.py b/tinygrad/helpers.py
index 273f35f7d7..4f60324e86 100644
--- a/tinygrad/helpers.py
+++ b/tinygrad/helpers.py
@@ -380,7 +380,7 @@ def _ensure_downloads_dir() -> pathlib.Path:
   return pathlib.Path(cache_dir) / "downloads"
 
 def fetch(url:str, name:pathlib.Path|str|None=None, subdir:str|None=None, gunzip:bool=False,
-          allow_caching=not getenv("DISABLE_HTTP_CACHE"), headers:dict[str, str]={}, retries:int=3) -> pathlib.Path:
+          allow_caching=not getenv("DISABLE_HTTP_CACHE"), headers:dict[str, str]={}) -> pathlib.Path:
   import urllib.request
   if url.startswith(("/", ".")): return pathlib.Path(url)
   if name is not None and (isinstance(name, pathlib.Path) or '/' in name): fp = pathlib.Path(name)
@@ -389,25 +389,17 @@ def fetch(url:str, name:pathlib.Path|str|None=None, subdir:str|None=None, gunzip
     fp = _ensure_downloads_dir() / (subdir or "") / ((name or hashlib.md5(url.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()) + hh + (".gunzip" if gunzip else ""))
   if not fp.is_file() or not allow_caching:
     (_dir := fp.parent).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
-    assert retries > 0
-    for retry in range(retries):
-      try:
-        with urllib.request.urlopen(urllib.request.Request(url, headers={"User-Agent": "tinygrad 0.12.0", **headers}), timeout=10) as r:
-          assert r.status in {200, 206}, r.status
-          length = int(r.headers.get('content-length', 0)) if not gunzip else None
-          readfile = gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=r) if gunzip else r
-          progress_bar:tqdm = tqdm(total=length, unit='B', unit_scale=True, desc=f"{url}", disable=CI)
-          with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(dir=_dir, delete=False) as f:
-            while chunk := readfile.read(16384): progress_bar.update(f.write(chunk))
-            f.close()
-            pathlib.Path(f.name).rename(fp)
-          progress_bar.update(close=True)
-          if length and (file_size:=os.stat(fp).st_size) < length: raise RuntimeError(f"fetch size incomplete, {file_size} < {length}")
-        break # success so don't retry
-      except Exception as e:
-        if retry+1 == retries: raise e
-        if DEBUG >= 2: print(f'Request {retry+1} failed: {e}. Retrying...')
-        time.sleep(0.1 * 2**retry) # exponential backoff
+    with urllib.request.urlopen(urllib.request.Request(url, headers={"User-Agent": "tinygrad 0.12.0", **headers}), timeout=10) as r:
+      assert r.status in {200, 206}, r.status
+      length = int(r.headers.get('content-length', 0)) if not gunzip else None
+      readfile = gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=r) if gunzip else r
+      progress_bar:tqdm = tqdm(total=length, unit='B', unit_scale=True, desc=f"{url}", disable=CI)
+      with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(dir=_dir, delete=False) as f:
+        while chunk := readfile.read(16384): progress_bar.update(f.write(chunk))
+        f.close()
+        pathlib.Path(f.name).rename(fp)
+      progress_bar.update(close=True)
+      if length and (file_size:=os.stat(fp).st_size) < length: raise RuntimeError(f"fetch size incomplete, {file_size} < {length}")
   return fp
 
 # *** Exec helpers