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

[CNeub]

Category

Questions

Answers (N/A if not applicable)

Description

Provide a detailed description of the issue AND 'does it fail every single time, or only sometimes?' If you can offer a % rate please do.

The eyestrain starts immediatly and everytime. Strainend eyes after some minuts of using notebook displays, focusing problems, dizziness, pain, headache, motion sickness. On the same external displays on an older computer with the same display resolution and refresh rate my eyes do not hurt at all.

However this described set up with intel iris is much more comfortable as intel hd 4xxx. With intel hd 4xxx graphics the symptoms are much worse.

Hardware (HW)

Brand and Model of the system.

Acer Aspire E5-573-59GV

Hybrid or switchable graphics system? ie Does it have AMD or NV graphics too?

No just Intel Iris

Make and model of any Displays that are used to see the issue (see note2 below).

LFP = Local Flat Panel (Laptop panel)

EFP = External Flat Panel (Monitor you plug in) 

LFP: Notebook FullHD Panel

EFP: LG E2351VR

How much memory [RAM] in the system (see note2 below).

8 GB

Provide any other hardware needed to replicate the issue.

ie: Cables&brand, cable type [vga, hdmi, DP, etc], dock, dongles/adapters, etc

Problems with all standard HDMI, VGA and DVI cables

Hardware Stepping (see note1 below).

Software (SW)

Operating System version (see note2 below).

Win 8.1

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[CNeub]

Well. If you have the same symptoms you can watch out

https://www.ledstrain.org/ https://www.ledstrain.org/

and be a part of the discussion there.

However I hope that we will get a feedback from intel pretty fast now.

[MBogd1]

Kevin, how linux users can obtain required information mentioned in note 1 and 2 at ?

[MBogd1]

Category

Questions

Answers (N/A if not applicable)

Description

Provide a detailed description of the issue AND 'does it fail every single time, or only sometimes?' If you can offer a % rate please do.

Similar to MiranSMS and lucio15:

"It happens instantly and everytime 100%. Sore eyes already in the first minute of using computer displays, hard focusing, dizziness, pain, eye strain.."

Hardware (HW)

Brand and Model of the system.

Samsung 900x

Hybrid or switchable graphics system? ie Does it have AMD or NV graphics too?

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3537U

Make and model of any Displays that are used to see the issue (see note2 below).

LFP = Local Flat Panel (Laptop panel)

EFP = External Flat Panel (Monitor you plug in) 

LFP 1600x900

How much memory [RAM] in the system (see note2 below).

8 GB

Provide any other hardware needed to replicate the issue.

ie: Cables&brand, cable type [vga, hdmi, DP, etc], dock, dongles/adapters, etc

Hardware Stepping (see note1 below).

Software (SW)

Operating System version (see note2 below).

Ubuntu 15.04

VBIOS (video BIOS) version. This can be found in "information page" of CUI (right click on Desktop and select "Graphics Properties".

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[CNeub]

Hey kevin_intel,

it's nearly a month ago hearing from you? Do you have some new information or is there any progress on the intel side?

[Kevin_M_Intel]

I see you are running a very old driver so please install the latest driver:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25484/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-1-10-15-40- https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25484/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-7-8-1-10-15-40-

[MBogd1]

Kevin, same problem with last drivers. I've just checked them on Dell latitude 7440 (i5-4310, hd 4600 graphics only, 1920x1080, Windows 10). Headache and eye strain after 10 min of notebook usage.

[SMohd2]

Hi kevin_intel, it's good to see that Intel is investigating this. Hopefully a solution can be found that can eliminate these eye strain.

To recreate and to investigate the root cause of the eye strain caused by the intel drivers, we should compare the drivers that do NOT cause eye strain, with the driver that DO cause eye strain, and see what has changed/added in the driver that might cause the eye strain.

I am the person from the lenovo forum that lucio15 provided the link in the previous pages of this thread. I have a Lenovo T420s laptop, which, even though it has PWM, but when I set the brightness to 100%, the PWM is gone I can use the laptop for hours with no eye strain. But when I upgraded/installed the newer intel graphics driver, I immediately get eye strain. Same screen/display, same laptop, same OS, same 100% brightness like before, the only difference is the Intel Graphics driver has been upgraded. When I use back the old driver, and the eye strain disappear. So it has to be the driver that causes the eye strain.

So here are 2 sets of intel HD graphics drivers which I know for a fact that one does NOT cause eye strain, and the other DO cause eye strain:

Intel HD Graphics 3000 Driver (Integrated) for Windows 7 (64-bit) - ThinkPad:

8.15.10.2476 - driver date 9/8/2011 - no eye strain, I can look at the screen for hours

9.17.10.3347 - driver date 31/10/2013 - eye strain within a few minutes of looking at the screen

Clearly there must be something that was changed or added in the newer (2013) driver that was not present in the older (2011) driver, that causes these eye strain. If we can find out what those changes are (e.g. was there any changes to the way temporal dithering work etc?). The challenge is that the changes that caused the eye strain might not be done in the 2013 version of the driver, it could be something that was changed/added in the (for example) the 2012 version of the driver, and it stayed there unchanged in the 2013 driver. So you may also need to look at all the drivers that has been released from 2012-2013 as well.

Another consideration is that, these eye strain only effect a small number of the population, maybe just 5% of the population. The rest (i.e. the 95%) will not have any issues or eye strain with the drivers. If the Intel engineers who are working on these drivers are part of the 95% of the population, then they may not be able to test if the changes in the drivers can solve these eye strain issues or not. To see if the changes made has solved the problem or not, the drivers will need to be tested by people who are affected by these eye strains, for example, the people in this thread.

Download link for the 2 intel drivers above for your easy reference:

9.17.10.3347 Intel Driver: http://support.lenovo.com/my/ms/downloads/ds014907 http://support.lenovo.com/my/ms/downloads/ds014907

8.15.10.2476 Intel Driver: http://www.mediafire.com/download/d8jj0atcca309n8/Intel%28R%29_HD_3000_Graphics_Driver_-_8.15.10.2476_-_2011.zip http://www.mediafire.com/download/d8jj0atcca309n8/Intel%28R%29_HD_3000_Graphics_Driver_-_8.15.10.2476_-_2011.zip

[SMohd2]

Category

Questions

Answers (N/A if not applicable)

Description

Provide a detailed description of the issue

After installing the newer Intel HD graphics driver (driver date 2013), I get eye strain when looking at the screen within a few minutes. The eye strain feels like headache and discomfort inside my eyes. Refer to my post above for more details.

Does it fail every single time, or only sometimes?

If you can offer a % rate please do.

It happens every time I look at the screen. But sometimes if I look at the screen long enough (despite the eye strain), there are brief moments of no eye strain, then the eye strain starts again, as if something is triggered (a background process or something how the driver "processes/displays" the graphics that previously stopped, now started again, and the eye strain comes back again.

Hardware (HW)

Brand and Model of the system.

Lenovo T420s laptop

Hybrid or switchable graphics system?

ie Does it have AMD or NV graphics too?

Intel HD Graphics 3000 (integrated graphics only)

Make and model of any Displays that are used to see the issue (see note2 below). 

LFP = Local Flat Panel (Laptop panel)EFP = External Flat Panel (Monitor you plug in)

LFP 1600x900

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[SMohd2]

I am attaching 5 files:

1. DxDiag file

2. DispDiag-Intel-Issues.dat file

3. Screenshot of graphics info

4. Screenshot of laptop monitor info

5. MyMovie.mp4 - A video that shows the screen flickering (caused by PWM) of two Lenovo T420s laptops, compared to the flicker-free Dell laptop.

The Dell laptop was my old E6400 laptop, which uses CCFL LCD display. This display has no flickering, and I can look at this screen and work on this laptop for hours non-stop. This was about 3-4 years ago. It was around this time that laptop manufacturers started switching from CCFL LCD display to LED backlit display for laptop screen and computer monitors. The Lenovo T420s uses an LED backlit display. When I use the Lenovo T420s for the first time, I get eye strain within a few minutes of using it, and it was very uncomfortable and painful to my eyes. I was puzzled as dont know why my eyes hurt when using the T420s laptop. When I used my old Dell laptop, and my eyes were fine, and I can look at the Dell's CCFL screen for long time with no eye strain. That's when I suspected there is something in the new LED display that is causing my eyes to strain. I search the internet and found out about PWM, or pulse-width-modulation, which is a technique used in LED backlit display to reduce the brightness of the screen by rapidly switching on-and-off the display to increase or decrease the brightness. This rapid switching on-and-off of the LED display is not visible to the naked eyes, but it can be captured in video of smartphones, as shown in the attached file. Majority of people are not bothered by this "invisible" flickering of the display, but to a small percentage of the population, like me, we get really bad eye strain, as our eyes somehow can detect this flickering, which causes the eye strain. This is what PWM eye strain is all about. Today many articles have been written about PWM eye strain, can google for more info.

I think that many people who are affected by PWM flickering and eye strain, are also affected by display driver related eye strain. It could be our eyes are more sensitive, or maybe something about the display driver has some effect on the (invisible) flickering of the display. It could be totally unrelated, it could be something about temporal dithering. I have read about this but there is no way for me to detect nor confirm if I am affected by this or not.

Another extra bit of info - when I used another Lenovo laptop, the T440 laptop which was using Win 8.1 and has a touch screen display, I found that the screen gives me eye strain (even at 100% brightness), but when I used the standard VGA driver (or Microsoft Basic Display Driver), I get no eye strain at all. When I switched back to the normal Intel driver, I get eye strain again. It was a loaner laptop, so I did not have it long enough to do more testing. Just thought I mention this, in case it is useful.

This is just some background and additional info to the intel engineers who are investigating this issue, hope this will help to find the root cause and more importantly, to find a solution to this eye strain issue.

[CNeub]

hey Kray_62

thanks for bringing your information in this thread. Knowing which driver was the "start" of the eyestrain would be great for us.

Hope that intel will use this information and comes along with a solution shortly.

May you also be so kind and give me your mail address?

[SMohd2]

Hi lucio15

I'm happy to see that Intel is looking into this. I have given as much info as I know on this issue in the above posts, hope these info will be useful to intel_admin and other intel engineers to investigate and identify the root cause of this driver related eye strain, and find a solution for it. Knowing 2 sets of drivers, one that does not cause eye strain and one that do cause eye strain should help to speed up the investigation and identification of the potential root cause of these eye strain. I am hoping that intel engineers can isolate and test each new thing that was changed or added in the 2013 driver to determine if that is the one that causes these eye strain.

Lucky I found this thread too. It's good to share as much info as we can, maybe we can find new things that will help us on this issue. My email is novell_np@y/a/h/o/o/./c/o/m/

[CNeub]

Yeah. With this information it shouldn't be very hard any more finding the root of our problem. Maybe just carefully looking into the changelogs will be anough.

[EstebanA_C_Intel]

Hello All:

Thank you for all the information provided regarding this situation.

I was able to note that you are using OEM systems (laptops that have Intel® Components inside). The drivers for these devices would be provided and handled by the manufacturer of the device directly.

This would because the device may have different special settings, features, etc, that probably are not going to be present with Intel® generic drivers which could affect the performance of the device.

The recommendation would be to test the system with the latest driver provided by the manufacturer of the device.

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t420s Laptops and netbooks :: ThinkPad T Series laptops :: ThinkPad T420s - Lenovo Support (US)

Regards,

Esteban C

[SMohd2]

Hi EstebanC_Intel,

Thanks for your reply. Are you saying that because the driver is from an OEM system, the OEM manufacturer would need to solve this, and not Intel? I hope this is not the case.

The thing is, I am not looking to solve the eye strain problem on my specific laptop (i.e. the Lenovo T420s alone), this problem I already have a (workaround) solution, as I can use back the old 2011 graphics driver that does not give me eye strain, which I am currently using right now. The issue that I was hoping for Intel to solve is that the general eye strain issue that is affecting many laptops (from various laptop brands) that are using Intel HD graphics.

The problem for me is that because of these eye strain issue that is arising from Intel HD graphics driver, I am not able or I find it very difficult to buy a new laptop, as most that I have tried so far (that uses integrated Intel HD graphics) give me eye strain. That is the solution that I was hoping that Intel can give, a common solution or guidelines or requirement on your intel HD graphics driver that all laptop manufacturers/OEMs should follow so that they don't do or add anything in the driver that might cause eye strain to users.

There are many people who are affected by these intel graphics driver eye strain, but I believe most of the people are using different laptop brands and models. If everyone were to go to their own laptop manufacturers and complaint about this, my concern is that the laptop manufacturer may see it as an isolated/one-off problem e.g. if I complaint to Lenovo, they might think only 1 person (i.e. me) who has eye strain problem with one specific model of their laptop, which is the T420s, which they might not put a lot or any resources to look into this. But we know the truth is that many people are affected by this, and there is a pattern or a common element/source of these eye strain, which is the intel graphics driver. That is why, I am really hoping Intel can take the lead, perhaps inform all your OEM manufacturers about this issue, and more importantly to investigate and find a solution for this, and inform all OEM manufacturers to follow Intel's guidelines or requirements when providing graphics drivers to their laptops.

[PCons1]

EstebanC_Intel please don't tell these guys to go to the OEMs. I have a NUC5i5RYK and I use my NUC with a displayport to VGA adapter even though my monitor also has dvi and hdmi inputs, because the adapter sort of smooths out some of the dumb stuff the driver does. It`s my last Intel GPU.

2 points for your observation:

1) On my first work laptop running XP plugged into the work monitor using a VGA cable, picture is nice and stable, very good. It was a GMA video chip. Then, I got upgraded to a new laptop using a 4000 or 4400 (forget which atm), as IT wasn`t ready to do the Win 7 rollout right away, they put XP on this laptop. So, this laptop using the same OS as previous, and connected to the same monitor using the same cable, now, in Office 2010 in the grey background I could visibly see scrolling `waves` like old style ground hum like you`d see on old televisions that had competing grounds. Then they rolled out win 7 and a newer driver and these `waves` stopped visible to the naked eye and seemingly look normal but I don`t think it is, it would probably show up on a oscilloscope. I think there is either a hardware issue endemic in the 4000-6000 series, or some serious driver issue. There should not have been ground bars on the XP VGA port using Intel drivers that `magically`went away when the OS was upgraded to 7. I`ve never really been able to use àuto`on the monitor as it has trouble getting a perfect lockon to make the text nice and sharp like the GMA. This tells me that there is still an interference pattern happening that the monitor can still see emitting from the Intel GPU.

2) The Surface Pro 4 is using PWM.. at first it didn`t, but now from this review: ``Thanks to a readers tip, who told us that he is suffering from problems caused by flickering / PWM, we looked at the Core i5 version again with the newest firmware and drivers. Now we could also measure flickering at 50 Hz below 50 percent brightness without a connected power adapter. Analyzing our readings, it does not seem to be classic PWM but some other form of flickering. `

I watched the video and it looks odd. Really annoying that Intel drivers and firmware are messing around with this stuff. 50 hz give me a break.

[CNeub]

EstebanC_Intel

It seems that you haven't read this thread carefully. This problem is NOT! an OEM problem, because EVERY! intel graphic chips harms our eyes. It doesn't matter which manufacturer has built the notebook. The only problem here is the intel graphics - especially the driver. Also it doesn't make any difference if we install the latest driver.

As Kray_62 mentionend, there was a change in the drivers between the TWO! mentionend drivers which harms our eyes and this special change/reason causes our eyestrain. We can use every driver since then - there is always the same eyestrain! The second 2013 driver was choosen, because it would be much easier to compare the two driver sets if the period of time between the two drivers is as small as possible.

I hope you intel guys are finally understanding this problem and care about it and don't shirk their responsibility for this serious problem any more!!!!

[PCons1]

lucio15 Kray_62

I have two links for your reading.. on turning off adaptive brightness and DPST. It may be of value. I noticed the other day that in the 4352 drivers for the Surface that this switch is visible again (what's mentioned in the option 4 of the eightforums link), so this is probably at least part of the issue MS is experiencing.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090723/lesson-intel-graphics-power-saving-feature/ http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090723/lesson-intel-graphics-power-saving-feature/

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6042-adaptive-brightness-turn-off-windows-8-a.html http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6042-adaptive-brightness-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

Also have adaptive contrast off in the video options, dynamic contrast off in the monitor. Max performance everything, power saving everything off.

[SMohd2]

Hi Sunspark

Intel power savings and adaptive brightness is always off on my laptop. I disabled it because I use my laptop with the display at 100% brightness all the time (to eliminate the PWM). I use a program called PowerStrip to reduce the "brightness" of the screen using software, as opposed to reducing the brightness using hardware (PWM).

Hi , kevin_intel and intel team,

I think this problem would not be solved by just downloading the latest driver (either from OEM or from Intel), especially when the root cause is not yet identified. There are enough information in this thread to show that intel graphics drivers do cause eye strain to some people, so this matter need to be investigated in order to find the root cause. What exactly in these (newer) drivers that are causing these eye strain? It should be noted that I find the Standard VGA driver (for Win 7) and Microsoft Basic Display Driver (Win 😎 do not cause eye strain as well, but when switched to the latest intel graphics driver, it causes eye strain. So there must be some features, some processes or something that were added in the full/newer intel graphics drivers that are causing these eye strain. Need to compare the features/components of these drivers, and identify the root causes of these eye strain.

I believe the solution to this problem, once the root cause has been identified, will likely require a rework or at least some modification to the intel graphics driver coding. This matter should be escalated and highlighted to the relevant intel team that develops and updates the intel graphics drivers. They should be aware that the graphics drivers that they developed are causing eye strain to some people, and they should investigate the root cause, and certain modifications probably need to be done to the drivers in order to eliminate the source of the eye strain.

If you are not in the intel graphics driver development / programming team, could you escalate and inform the relevant team in Intel about this issue, please?

And can you also share what is the progress and what are the work being done on this issue?

[EstebanA_C_Intel]

Hello, All:

I gathered the information provided by you guys, the dxdiag reports, harwared ids, videos, graphics information reports, and the chart to report graphics issues.

I will be checking this information to attempt to replicate the issue with the equipment available that is the nearest to your configurations/systems.

I will be providing you with my outcome on this.

Regards,

Esteban C

[CNeub]

Hey EstebanC_Intel

Thanks for your effort. Hoping that we find a solution for this serious problem soon.