eye strain

[CNeub]

hello,

I have a Notebook with Intel Core i7 4710 - Intel Graphics 4600 and external Nvidia Gforce GTX 850M for about 2 weeks now. I connect the Notebook on two different places per HDMI with nearly three year old lg monitors. With my old Notebook (Intel Core2Duo and Nvidia Gforce 9500GT) I had not any problems with this two monitors. However when I connect one of the two monitors with my new Notebook I get eye strain and headache. Of course I use the right resolution FullHD and tried out different brigthness and contrast adjustments in intel graphic properties. OS is Windows 7 Prof x64 and the newest drivers are installed. Version:15.33.22.64.3621

Nearly two months ago I purchased an other Notebook with Intel Core i7 4700MQ - Intel Graphics 4600 and Nvidia Gforce GT755 M. I had the same problem there and so I sent it back, because I thought that the Notebook has an defect. I tried out Windows 7 and Windows 8 and had the same eye problems in the two different OS.Now I do not really know what the problem exactly is, because I have these problems with two different Notebooks on two different external LG Monitors and the integrated Displays of the Notebooks. But I thinkt the problem is the Intel HD 4600. Maybe that there is something wrong with the driver.Do you have any ideas about this? Couse I can't purchase and send back new Notebooks all the time.

Sorry for my bad english

[DKour]

It seems I'm out of luck. I couldn't find qn older version that works anywhere. I even tried downloading some drivers directly from intel but they are not compatible with my machine. Let's just hope they come up with a solution somehow...

[MSolt2]

I have HD 4400 and i cant find old drivers for Windows 7. I have only version 9.18 which cause eye strain.

Very important that I can set PWM to 20kHz with IntelPWMControl but this NOT REDUCE my eye strain.

Whats more when watching monitor I see my screen blinking. It is very strange and It's hard to see or record.

It is something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI6MotddGj8 Lenovo screen flickering - YouTube or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APmsSEjBHOE FLICKER BACKLIGHT FAULTY - YouTube but less visible

Notice: Saving mode and auto-dimming is turned off.

[DKour]

Exactly! I get that too, but it is so slight that I did not even think of describing it as "blinking". Also, I was not sure if it was the screen doing it or my tired eyes that could not see properly.

[MSolt2]

OK so I can confirm that PWM cause me big headache, but we can use brightness 100% and reduce in powerstrip contrast and brightness or we can use IntelPWMControl for some old drivers. And it is working for me I HAVE NO HEADACHE.

But I have all time eye strain, I checked everthing , refresh rate 75Hz, PWM more then 20kHz, font antialiasing, but i HAVE EYE STRAIN.

I cannot check old 8.X drivers because i cannot install on my HD 4400, but You checked this and confirmed this https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/Intel-HD-video-driver-update-forced-antialiasing-problem/m-p/1087989 Intel HD video driver update forced antialiasing p... - Lenovo Community

1. So I thinkt that PWM should be added to HD Intel drivers, maybe as options.

2. Intel should check what was changed between 8.X and 9.X driver version and fix it or add this as option in driver.

[SMohd2]

Hi @Ronald_Intel

Thanks for updating us.

The percentage of population affected by this issue i.e. the 5%, is just a rough estimation, based on the number people highlighting this issue in various threads and in various forums.The actual number is likely to be more than 5%. The reason is because many people who are suffering from eye strain caused by intel graphics driver, they may not know it's the graphics driver that is causing it. They might think it is something wrong with them, so they dont complaint or highlight this issue.

Think of us as the "early detector" of this problem. The people who highlighted this problem in forums could be the "tip of the iceberg", where only 5 percent of us is visible (posting in forums), but underneath the water there may be many many other people like us getting eye strain, but they just dont know what caused it and where to turn to.

This issue is relatively new. People are (slowly) starting to discover this issue. Nobody really knows how widespread this issue really is, and we also don't know the long term effect, especially the potential damage to the eyes which is still unknown. Maybe Intel should do a thorough study on this, or ask one of the universities to do a study on this.

I understand that Intel "do not want to cause any eye strain to the other 95% that do not experience the issue right now". You are absolutely right. The 95% do not experience the issue *right now*. Because so little is known about this issue.....what if this issue, if left unresolved could cause the rest of the 95% to slowly damage their eyes in the long run as well? If this is the beginning of a problem that could spread and grow to become something big, wouldn't Intel want to put as much resources as needed to solve this problem as soon as possible, thereby eliminating the risk of this issue "spreading" (as more people discover them), and before people's eyes gets permanently damaged?

I am just providing a different perspective. If Intel is approaching this, not just to solve the problem faced by the 5%, but also to prevent the issue from spreading to the 95% of the population, then maybe it would be easier to justify putting more resources to find a solution to this problem.

[DKour]

Kray_62

You may have a point here. As a matter of fact, I had been using my machine for quite some time before realising something is wrong. In the beginning I thought that it had suddenly gotten too bright or that I had just tired my eyes at work. Then one morning, I noticed that I could not see my GPS screen in my car easily. I had actually sort of started seeing double. I then tried many things, callibrating the colour, installing f.lux, nothing did the trick. My vision remained affected and it only improved when I went on a trip for a week where I was not using the computer at all. When I came back, I thought that there was something definitely wrong and I started working on an old netbook instead. Whenever I would turn on my laptop with the intel hd adapter, the discomfort would return. What I am trying to say is that a person can keep using his or her machine for a long time before he or she realises that there is something wrong. Perhaps even permanent damage can be done to the eyes. My vision is back to normal now but I did have the double vision problem I mentioned. And personally, I even thought that maybe something was suddenly wrong with the hardware and I was considering buying another laptop. It was then that I came across the discussion on this forum, even though I had tried relevant searches a lot of times before.

[SMohd2]

To @Ronald_Intel and Intel team,

Based on _dimitri_'s feedback, we now have another 2 sets of drivers, this time it is not OEM's, but Intel's own drivers:

- 20.19.15.4300 (driver date 01-10-15) - no eye strain

- 20.19.15.4331 (driver date 20-11-15) - causes eye strain

Since this is Intel's own driver, I assume Intel would have the source code for these drivers and therefore can investigate more easily what has been added/changed in the 4331 driver that was not present in the 4300 that could be the cause of the eye strain.

Here are some things that are known (so far) to cause eye strain:

- PWM

- dithering / temporal dithering

- anti-aliasing / blurry text font

- blue light

Does the 4300 driver (no eye strain) has any of the above items in the driver coding or settings?

And does the 4331 driver (causes eye strain) added any of the above items, or changed any settings to parameters related to any of the above items? What are the things that were added/changed in the 4331 driver that was not present in the 4300? Could make a list, and we can try to eliminate one at a time.

That could be a good start to investigate this. With this new information, hope you can find the root cause and the solution.

[DKour]

Kray_62

Of course, now that I have found a driver that works for me, my own problem has been resolved. But I wrote the paragraph above to illustrate that this could indeed be a serious issue that can affect a lot of people, without all of them necessarily realising immediately or reporting it.

[DKour]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know, in case it helps, that I have found a driver that switched my screen back to normal, and I have no eye strain problem whatsoever. It is not much older than the latest one by the way. Apparently, I had not noticed that, even if I installed an older driver, Windows 10 would upgrade it to the latest version shortly afterwards. I needed to "Change device installation settings" from the Control Panel in order to stop this from happening. (perhaps the version which I tried a couple of days ago would have worked too)

So now I have downloaded the file win64_154010.4300.zip directly from Intel (not my laptop vendor) and did a manual driver installation (the corresponding .exe installer is not allowed to execute on my machine, due to a driver update policy or something). This is the resulting "good" driver version:

The latest version available for my machine, which is normally installed automatically by Windows 10 and causes me problems, is this one:

It's interesting that it's just one version increment that causes the issue in my case...

[SMohd2]

_dimitri_

That is fantastic news. Glad to hear you have managed to find an old intel driver that does not cause eye strain. Must be a huge relief to be able to use your laptop again without any eye strain whatsoever.

At least now we know, those who have laptop with Intel Graphics 4400 and using Windows 10, there is an (old) intel graphics driver that does not cause eye strain. Must take note of this. 🙂

So now we have another 2 sets of drivers, this time it is not OEM's, but Intel's own drivers:

- 20.19.15.4300 (driver date 01-10-15) - no eye strain

- 20.19.15.4331 (driver date 20-11-15) - causes eye strain

Can you share, how do you download these drivers? I went to intel.com website to search for intel's graphics driver for my Lenovo T450 laptop that has Intel 5500 graphics (Windows 7), and the search gives no result.

[DKour]

Kray_62

Thanks! It is quite a relief indeed!

I got the driver from the download center (see image below). If you start typing "intel hd" in the search box, it proposes you various relevant searches. Read through the driver details carefully however, once you find one, to make sure that it fits your system. Also, you might have to download the zip file and install the driver manually, after removing your previous one, instead of downloading an .exe version (assuming an exe version is available, of course). In my case, as I have mentioned, the .exe would refuse to proceed due to some rules set by my vendor, if I have understood correctly.

[SMohd2]

_dimitri_

No wonder. I searched Lenovo T450 graphics driver and nothing came up. 🙂 Will try searching using the right keywords like you suggest.

[DKour]

For everyone who has managed to find an old driver, in order to temporarily resolve this issue, note that, if you are using Windows 10, your system may keep updating to the latest version of the driver without you realising it. I mentioned earlier that this can be resolved using the "Change device installation settings" tool from the Control Panel, but it now seems to me that that is not really the case. However, there exists another utility, which is not very well known apparently, that can really hide the driver update for you: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930

[RonaldM_Intel]

Thanks for all your input! Sorry for answering until now, I am off during the weekends.

Can everyone else experiencing eye strain confirm if driver version 15.40.10.4300 works for you as well? The driver can be downloaded from here:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25484/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-1-10-15-40- Download Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 7/8.1/10* [15.40]

[DKour]

You're welcome! I hope it helps resolve the problem. Apart from my eyes stopping to suffer, using the 15.40.10.4300 version made me realise how good the image quality on my screen can be. The .4331 version was also making things a bit blurry and the white colour too bright compared to the rest. Unless of course this is my own impression, caused by the way the driver was affecting me.

[RonaldM_Intel]

Hello,

I just want to confirm that we are still working on this.

If driver 15.40.10.4300 corrects the eye strain issue for all of you (just like it did for user _dimitri_ ), then it would be easier to track the changes from that version to the new ones (instead of having to go back to 2013 drivers and many, many change logs).

We need to establish a common ground here, and preferably one that is based on recent drivers. That is why we need everyone to try with driver 15.40.10.4300 and report back the results. If you still experience eye strain, and ONLY if you haven't done so before, post your results using the format as detailed here:

Once again, many thanks for all your efforts, and patience while dealing with this.

[SMohd2]

Ronald_Intel

Hi Ronald. Yes, I will definitely try the driver (using the Lenovo T450 laptop with the Intel Graphics 5500). Usually when I test a new driver, I need to use it for for few days (or a week) to make sure the effect/result (eye strain or no eye strain) is consistent. Will post back the result by end of next week. In the mean time, perhaps some other members here can test and post their results first.

[SMohd2]

I have installed and started testing the 4300 driver today. Had some trouble installing it. Like _dimitri_ said, the .exe version does not work. I got a "not validated" error or something like that. Installing the .zip file also initially does not work, it says my current driver is up to date. I had to uninstall my current intel driver and use the Standard VGA driver, before installing the 4300 driver. Now it works. Just sharing this in case other people also had difficulties to install this driver too. Will need a few days or maybe a week (depending how much time I get to use this laptop) to test this driver. Will post the result later.

[EstebanA_C_Intel]

Hello, All:

Thank you all for the feedback provided regarding this situation.

I look forward to your outcome with this Kray_62

Regards,

Esteban C

[SMohd2]

Hi folks,

I'm still testing the intel 4300 driver, just thought I give an update on how it goes so far.

My setup:

• Lenovo T450 laptop
• LED-backlit display, 1600x900, non-touch
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Service Pack 1
• 8Gb RAM
• Intel HD Graphics 5500

This is not my primary laptop. My company's IT department was kind enough to loan me this laptop for me to test it for eye strain. I use this laptop mostly at night, mainly to do selected office work (Words, Powerpoint, Excel) and browsing the internet, to test for eye strain.

How I test:

First, I eliminate the known source of eye strain from this laptop, which is Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). This laptop display uses PWM, and PWM do cause eye strain for me, but luckily there is a workaround solution to eliminate PWM, which is by increasing the brightness to 100% (which eliminates the PWM), and I use a software called PowerStrip to reduce the brightness using software (instead of hardware/PWM). I tested the display using the PWM Blur Trail test http://www.testufo.com/# test=blurtrail http://www.testufo.com/# test=blurtrail which confirms no more PWM.

Day 1 - After I installing the Intel 4300 driver, I used it the laptop for 30 to 40 minutes on first use. For testing, I used the laptop mainly for Microsoft Words, Powerpoints, browsing internet using Chrome. No games. Plugged in/on AC power. This is on day 1.

Day 2 - I let 24 hours go by without using the laptop, then i used the laptop again, again for 30 minutes.

Then I stopped testing for a few days (went on a business trip), when I'm back, I started testing again (Day 3) and was using the laptop for about 40 minutes straight.

Here's my preliminary results - in short, I do get eye strain. But wait...

I was on my Day 4 of testing when I realized something. This laptop actually has dual graphic cards. It has Intel HD Graphics 5500 and the Nvidia GeForce 940M. I know that for laptops with dual graphic cards, the laptop would use the integrated Intel graphics for normal applications, and would only use the discrete (Nvidia) graphic card for graphic intensive applications like games. Because I didn't play any games on this laptop, it should only use the Intel graphics card, but I can never know for sure.

So I just realized that I can't tell for certain if the eye strain I was getting was from the Intel driver, or from the Nvidia driver. So I disabled the Nvidia graphics card. So now this laptop is only using the Intel HD Graphics 5500. This is the only way to know for sure. I should have noticed and realized this earlier.

So please ignore my preliminary results....I will need to re-do the entire test cycle again. When I do my testing, I sometime take 24 hour break from using the laptop to make sure if there is any residual eye strain, it would be gone before I started the next test. I also want to make sure, whatever the result (eye strain or no eye strain), it is consistent, which require several cycle/days of testing to confirm.

So please bear with me for a few more days, probably until middle of next week. Will post the result then.

[TBart4]

Is there any chance to get this driver 4300 for Macbook Air 2014 and Macbook Retina 2015 - latest model. Both got this issue.

I wrote to Apple even to to Tim Cook and no answer. I know that I'm not only one with this issue, they just can read Apple Support Forum.

I can use this two MacBooks only with min brightness and still got eye strain, bad vision etc.

My old computer is to slow to work with but with this one I have no strain and can use this whole day so it's not my eye problem.

Please use our feedback we as eye sensitive users can help you to avoid some very big issue with big amount people eyes.

Now they feel nothing but soon it can be very big problem to them and for you.