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]

Hi everyone,

I got rid of my Toshiba with Intel HD graphics in the end. There was nothing I could do to ease the pain. I've been using an old macbook ever since at home and things are fine. At work, I have a desktop PC with Windows 7 *with intel HD graphics* and it's all good. Today I tested an MS Surface with windows 8, connecting it to my desktop monitor (the one I have no problem with when it is connected to the windows 7 PC) and the old problem, which I had almost forgotten about, came back and my eyes started hurting. It really seems like my eyes only hurt with Intel HD graphics on Windows 8 and 10 machines; not on the mac and not on Windows 7. (?!) I hope we will have some news at some point.

[OVyno]

I can confirm that the eye strain problem is caused by Intel drivers. There is no problem with Nvidia or AMD drivers. Is there any news from developers?

[DKour]

I have just upgraded my Mac to Sierra from El Capitan. I seem to be having some discomfort. I'll report back after a few days and let you know if it gets worse. With El Capitan I was having no issue. Ronald_Intel, could you please let us know if the drivers provided for El Capitan are different from those provided for Sierra? If so, you may have your answer: The difference between the two is what causes the problem in the newer drivers.

[DKour]

After using Sierra on my macbook for a day, I now realise that I was wrong about the irritation after the upgrade from El Capitan. I don't seem to be having a problem using the new version of the MacOS operating system. However, I have also installed Windows with bootcamp on the same machine and I definitely have a problem there. My eyes get very tired, even after 30 minutes of usage. What I mentioned before seems to still be quite accurate. I am having this issue on *some* machines running Windows 10 or 8 and using Intel Graphics HD driver. I have also tried an Asus machine from a friend and, there, even though the Intel HD driver is updated to the latest version and he is running Windows 10, I have no problem at all...

[OVyno]

What model of Asus does your friend have? As I tried many Asus notebooks and had eye strain problem on every model that has Intel HD videocard.

[DKour]

Hi valex13. He has the ASUS K95VM, upgraded to Windows10:

https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/K95VM/ https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/K95VM/

[OVyno]

_dmitri_, ASUS K95VM has Nvidia card, not Intel - that is why you didn't have eye strain effect

[DKour]

Sadly, it's more complicated than that. It has both. Another one I had, a Toshiba satellite, also had an nvidia card and intel and it toasted my eyes. Maybe the asus uses intel less, or maybe it has a better screen. Who knows...

[ØPede]

I also have an Toshiba with nvidia card and that gives me eyestrain. I even bought an desktop computer with a dedicated g-force(where you could disable intel hd in bios) and that gave me strain. Its very hard to find a laptop/desktop thats easy on eyes. I think amd graphic card will be the best bet.

[DKour]

No doubt that this is a very frustrating issue, at least for those of us who have to put up with it. I hope that they will come up with a solution at some point. It is taking very long and the feedback is, in my honest opinion, slow and almost not acknowledging the issue. Perhaps that is to be expected due to the fact that, at least according to what they say, there is only a minority of us who experience it. As far as I am concerned, like you say, I too will probably try to stay away from intel graphics chipsets, as long as I have a choice. That is sad because they now come in one piece with Intel CPUs which I have come to appreciate greatly over the years.

At the same time, I would be very wary of just rushing out and buying an AMD card or something else. I would try out the new product extensively before deciding that it does not also give me eye strain. I have tried many configurations with Intel HD graphics and, from the results, it seems that the driver is definitely to blame (eye strain occurred after a driver update in many cases), but only in combination with *certain* monitors and, possibly, operating system versions. This makes me think that perhaps some new monitor, operating system or graphics hardware technology may also be to blame and one cannot be sure that the same items and techniques are not used by other companies as well.

For feedback to Intel, and also in order to illustrate my point, these are the machines and OSes I've tried, all updated with the latest available drivers:

Toshiba Satellite (Intel HD + GeForce) with win10 -> Eye strain (very severe after a certain driver update which I can no longer roll back)

ASUS Laptop (K95VM: Intel HD + GeForce) with Windows 10 -> NO Eye strain

Macbook Pro 13'' (early 2012) with win10 -> Eye strain

Macbook Pro 13'' (early 2012) with OSX El Capitan -> NO Eye strain

Macbook Pro 13'' (early 2012) with OSX Sierra -> Eye strain(yes in the end I am now sure that it does give me eye strain, even if it is less than with Win10 on the same machine)

Desktop PC with (Intel HD only) with win7 -> NO Eye strain

MS Surface 3 with Win8 -> NO Eye strain

MS Surface 3 connected to the above mentioned desktop's monitor -> Eye strain

[RonaldM_Intel]

Hello,

I would like to let you know that we are still working on improving the viewing experience, and obviously address the eye strain issue that is affecting some of our users.

We'll be reaching each one of you to suggest specific tests based on your system configuration. Your feedback will help us identify what is causing the issue (e.g. identify which component of the driver might be causing the issue).

If I miss contacting one of you, feel free to send me a Private Message.

Note: For all users experiencing eye strain on Apple* hardware, please contact Apple* directly.

Apple* has asked us to forward all support inquiries to them. https://support.apple.com/ Official Apple Support

Kindest Regards,

[RPutc1]

Hi All,

After several years of suffering and experimentation, the following helped remove the strain in the decreasing order of positive impact:

- blacklist i915 module in kernel modsetting

- remove Xserver intel driver and use modesetting driver instead (without acceleration when no external graphics card present)

- set cpu scaling governor to performance instead of powersave

- disable i915.enable_rc6

I have done this on two laptops and a desktop with +ve results. Some config details:

1. Toshiba tecra laptop, Fedora 24, i5-5300U, display panel: 6bpp as dmesg reports

2. Hp Envy 14 laptop, Manjaro Linux, i56200U, display panel: 6pp as dmesg reports, nvidia geforce graphics card with static dithering configured

3. Dell Optiplex, Manjaro Linux, cpu: i3, dell monitor 2015H.

Hope this helps.

I would be glad to provide more details if required.

Ravi

[DKour]

I can confirm that disabling the intel driver on a linux system is the most effective solution I have come up with so far. The advantage on Linux is that I can still control the brightness, even without the driver, through the command line. On Windows and MacOS, once the driver is disabled, the brightness gets "stuck" at maximum level.

[TZohr]

I recently figured out that the eye strain gets less if I sit a meter away from monitor, try and see if it can reduce the problem.

[JShaf1]

HI,

I recently bought HP Envy 17 R100NE (which is 2015 or 2016 model). It is FULL HD laptop. It has INTEL HD Graphics 530.

I can easily say this INTEL graphics driver causes EYE STRAIN when I look at TEXT or White Background or Page....

I know about Brightness, Gamma, Contrast etc. I have compared different Laptops, Computers... which have only NVIDEA drivers and those recent Laptops... which have INTEL HD Graphics drivers as Integrated.. main graphics card.

Thus, I can very easily say INTEL HD Graphics card or drivers.... causes EYE FATIGUE, EYE STRAIN, it is difficult to do READING.... or look at White Background/Pages...

Please, if anyone know the solution to this problem, do give a solution.

I want INTEL TEAM, to solve the problem of INTEL HD Drivers... as they causes EYE STRAIN... EYE PAIN.... which is extremely bad for our eyes.

[DKour]

(I have edited this message trying to make it as helpful as possible)

After prolonged usage of MacOS Sierra, I started to suspect that I have a problem there too, something which I didn't have before upgrading from El Capitan. Nevertheless, I cannot really be sure at this point. The OSX / MacOS problem, if it even exists in my case, is less severe than the problem on Windows. I've been looking over the thread and I've noticed that, in the past, I have reported many times that I was having trouble, even on El Capitan, only to change my mind later. In the end however, after getting rid of my "problematic" Windows laptop, I had been using El Capitan for a long time with no problem at all.

Upgrading to Sierra happened at the same time when I started using a machine that was giving me eye strain at work. The effects usually remain even after using such "problematic" machines, so it could be that I was "carrying over" the problem from work and it was not Sierra causing it. I will be able to tell for sure in a few days, since I have stopped using this other computer.

[useno]

I have been experiencing this eye strain issue for almost 2 years, I tried everything but none of them works. Only decreasing the brightness was giving me a little relief. But nowadays this problem bothers me again and decrease my efficiency a lot. I have been watching this topic from its beginning where some intel guys thinking it is just psychological issue. It sounds good that now intel is searching for the cause instead of ignoring the problem just because small amount of people. I hope you will find a solution. I will look for it. if not, sorry Intel, but the next time I will buy a loptop it will have amd radeon in it. I dont want to waste my time and mental energy for searching a solution.

[DKour]

We have all spent an awful lot of time trying to deal with this somehow and I'm sure we will do our best to stay as safe as possible from such problems in the future, when the time comes to buy a new computer.

A bit of info: I went to a shop to have a look and by now almost all new machines that carry Windows 10 and intel HD graphics hurt my eyes, with the strange exception of the Surface tablets... There was one AMD powered machine with a Radeon card, and that was fine.

Since Sierra also started hurting my eyes on my macbook, I decided to completely uninstall it. I gave Linux one more chance but the intel Linux driver also causes eye strain. Disabling it is one solution but then you cannot change the resolution any more and there is the performance issue...

I had tried Windows 10 on this macbook too and various versions of the intel drivers. They all were quite irritating in the end, even the older ones. I've now found one way to solve my problem though. I actually installed Windows 7. I thought this would be enough but the latest intel driver for Windows 7 also strains my eyes. However, I got lucky. Inside the boot camp installer (Apple support software and drivers for installing Windows on a mac) for my machine which is a little old (2012) there was an old intel driver that is not published on the intel website any more:

This one gives me almost no eye strain. I'm sure because I've been using it for quite a few days. I hope this may serve as a hint as to what could be corrected. The earliest driver that I could download from the intel website was executable win64_153332.exe. That one is from late 2014 I think, and it also causes eye strain.

[DKour]

And yet more news: The Windows 7 installation I mentioned above was missing a lot of Windows updates. After they were installed, with the 3345 driver remaining since I had blocked its update, the machine started giving me eye strain again. I then updated the driver to the latest one available via Windows update (4276) and now it's sort of tolerable... So maybe it's not JUST the driver that's causing it after all... In general, on this particular machine on which I've tried all sorts of combinations, the problem is worst on Windows 10, a bit better on OSX Sierra (but still very annoying), non-existent on El Capitan, and sort of tolerable on Windows 7 and Debian Linux.

As a reminder I'd like to mention that a couple of years ago there was no problem at all on this or any other machine. Still today, there are a few machines that give me no eye strain, even with Windows 10 and the latest intel drivers. All of them have pretty old hardware, apart from the Surface 3.

[DKour]

Ok, I'm done. It was PWM messing with my eyes and head. While we've been wondering what's wrong and pleading for something to be done about this issue for 2 years, some other people just solved it by setting the PWM frequency to a level that doesn't destroy their health. If you google "increase pwm" "intel" and "intelpwmcontrol" you will find lots of discussions and hacks about how to tweak it to a level that is comfortable. If you're lucky enough one of these will work on your machine. It has worked on one of mine.

There's a PWM "blur trail" test mentioned in this forum. In my experience that cannot really help you reach a conclusion about whether there's PWM on your screen or not. I've had false positives and negatives with it.

My guess is that at some point the pwm frequency was lowered in order to save battery life or something now that we are living in a 'mobile first' world. I know that there are arguments about what frequencies can be perceived by the human eye and all that but, for my human eyes, the higher the frequency the better. So what I do is I push it from 150hz or 200hz or whatever it is set to by default, to even as high as 20000 if possible and I don't care if I'm consuming too much energy or if I'll burn my monitor someday. If the screen can't take it, too bad but it was probably an overpriced piece of junk anyway. I prioritise my health over all that. When I can't manage to tweak the frequency, I just uninstall the intel driver. I prefer low resolutions and bad performance to seeing double.

I would like to stress once again that this problem occurred on machines that I had been working on with no problem at all for years, and started getting headaches and eye strain the last couple of years after an update of the intel hd driver. I know that nobody cares about my health or whether I'm disappointed or not. That is a personal problem. But I will be avoiding even intel CPUs from now on, since they come packed with the intel hd graphics chipsets. I am not saying this due to the driver defect, since mistakes happen, but to the level of support and the lack of information we had to put up with, for years in effect, while some people may have been trying to use the only computer they can afford to get their work done, while our time was being wasted and our health damaged.

[RPutc1]

Right. PWM is definitely a factor. However, from the research I have done on the net, a higher PWM may increase the RF/EM interference. Not sure what it means for the hardware, but please watch out if you have EMF sensitivity. Also, please check the range of frequencies supported by your panel if can get hold of the spec.

I got hold of the following formula from "Chimei Innolux" panel product spec which might be of use:

(N + 0.33) * f <= f_pwm <= (N + 0.66) * f

N: Integer, (N >= 3)

f: monitor frame (refresh) rate

f_pwm: pwm frequency

Also it says, if f_pwm is less than 1 KHz "waterfall" phenomenon may occur, so it recommends a higher value.