Hi, my name is Peter. I'm 36 years old and I'm from Poland. From teenage years I'm PC user. Now it's my job and hobby, so it's important part of my life. Unfortunately lately something went terrible wrong. I will try describe my problem briefly, I hope someone from this forum will help me.

As I stated before I'm PC user many years now. I have never had any problems with monitors. Old TV, CRT, TN panels, IPS panels and others. Also no problems with my eyes, yes, I have small defect of vision (~ -0.5) on left and right eyes and I have damaged iris in my right eye from Air Soft Gun activity (from 2009), but It's not the problem, my sight is very good. I also do sport in moderate amount (cycling 5k km/year) and some calisthenics, nothing serious.

My monitors history in home:

  • 1994 to 2000 - CRT 15"
  • 2000 to 2009 - CRT 17" (LG Flatron)
  • 2009 to June 2020 - Dell 2209WA (IPS, 60Hz, 22")
  • June 2020 to now - Dell AW2521HF (IPS, 240Hz, 24")

In work:

  • 2004 to 2016 - different TN panels (laptops)
  • 2016 to now - Dell P2414H (IPS, 60Hz, 24")

It's was all fine until beggining of November 2020. Something changed, I have no idea what cause that...

From day to day I can't stand my new monitor Dell AW2521HF. I can't even look at screen for more than 5minutes, because I start to fell sick in every possible way (even heart , yea, it's crazy). I tried everything, every possible settings in monitor OSD and nVidia control panel. I even changed lights in the room, monitor setup etc.

For now I'm back to my old Dell 2209WA and it's fine. I feel that my eyes are tired because I was trying find the solution for new monitor and I spent to much time looking at screen even I felt sick from it.

The only changes I remember from beginning of November is:

  • I instaled new nVidia drivers
  • I updated Windows 10 from version 1909 to 2004.
  • I added second monitor (old one) to my desktop setup
  • I increased contrast from 38 to 42% to eliminate some problems with image retentions in Dell AW2521HF (for now I went back to my previous settings)

I have no idea what's wrong with me and I don't see any solution for now. Is there any person who has similiar problem and can help me?

    Could be Windows 10 2004 and/or the new drivers. I'd go back to the previous versions and see if it helps. I'd also revert your room lighting changes in case you now have a lighting that's worse than the old one.

    CorvusCorax Hey Peter,
    I am Andrea from Italy! I've read your post on blur buster forum and I reply yesterday on that topic.
    I suggest you follow KM's advice. I tried W10 2004 on my desktop PC (AMD 480 + Alienware AW2518HF) and my father's notebook (Intel HD 610 + 720P TN 60hz cheap panel with PWM) and I got the same result: nausea, dizziness and neck stuck.

    Chief blur buster knows a lot of interest things, for example he said:
    "-- Coil Whine: Another issue is coil whine. Near-unhearable sounds can cause nausea. Many monitors makes near-ultrasonic sounds that changes with refresh rates. Some high-frequency switching power supplies hidden inside monitor sometimes have a near-ultrasonic sound to it. Sometimes you can't hear it but its sounds sometimes cause people to throw up (like a faint near-ultrasonic). The coil whine is worse at 240Hz on some monitors. This is hard to trace if you can't really hear it. I know that continuous exposure to sounds can cause people to feel sick. If you have a glass wall or glass window inside your place, try putting monitor on opposite side of the glass wall and see what happens. Keep the monitor's power brick there too, though coil whine can come from monitor's back or even from monitor screen glass too (vibrating in sympathy to the electronics on the rear). If your nausea disappears when your monitor is noiseboxed this way, then you found your problem."

    It would be interesting to know if this issue can be triggered by a software update or not. Because for the majority of us it's just a software problem. For example, we can use W10 without GPU driver installed or MAC's in safe mode but not in MACOS with GPU driver loaded.

      Thanks for answer. I don't think the coil whine is the problem in my case because I was using new monitor (Dell AW2521HF) from June 2020 and all was just fine. I hear some coil whine when I switch to 240Hz, but I feel sick even at 60Hz.

      The strange part of 2004 update is that my old monitor on the same PC works as good as before. I have no clue.

      I will try to uninstall all GPU drivers today.

        CorvusCorax Trust me, try to use the same W10 version of June 2020!
        W10 2004 for me didn't work with any drivers from 2017 to 2020!

        Anyway i am not saying "the problem is just W10 2004" it's more complex and it's the interaction of OS, Driver and monitor.

        For example the first time i had eye strain was 3 years ago when i changed my CCFL monitor with a 4K led monitor. My GPU was the same of today, AMD RX 480, and i tried 4 different monitor:
        LG 27UD68 4K IPS 60hz monitor not ok. Eye strain for the first time in my life.
        AOC I2481FXH 1080P IPS 60 hz monitor no ok.
        Asus MG248Q 1080P TN 144hz monitor it was ok but really bad color so i returned it.
        Alienware AW2518HF 1080P TN 240 hz monitor it was super fine and with this monitor i am able to stay in front my PC all day.
        So in that case i tried 4 different monitor with the same GPU, GPU driver and OS. Two of them were super bad for my eyes and the other two were fine.
        But with the same GPU (AMD RX 480) and same monitor (AW2518HF) I literally died when I tried W10 2004.

          Lauda89 Great advice above - just know that you're not alone, almost everyone in this forum has a similar problem and it's normally not simple to diagnose. At least in your case you should be able to roll back to a fully working setup by going to your pre-November 2020 setup.

          And once you have a working setup again, I'd recommend using something like Acronis True Image or similar to take a snapshot clone of your PC that you can return to easily if you start experiencing problems again.

          Keep us in the loop if the switch back to 1909 works for you - as you're within 30 days you should still be able to roll back to that version by typing 'Reset This PC' in the start menu and using the option to roll back. Good luck!

          Thanks. Knowing that I'm not crazy or mental sick it's already some relief 🙂 I will start with update roll back. I will let you know about the results. Meantime, if anyone has some other suggestion, please write here. I will be grateful.

            For reference it would be handy to know your full PC spec, particularly the GPU. Good luck with the roll back..

            My config:

            MB: Gigabyte GA-B150N Phoenix-WIFI
            CPU: i7-7700
            RAM: 16GB RAM 2666MHz
            GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER STRIX ADVANCED 6GB
            SSDs: Samsung M.2 128GB + Crucial MX500 500GB
            OS: Windows 10 Home

            CorvusCorax Meantime, if anyone has some other suggestion, please write here. I will be grateful.

            Just consider yourself lucky that you know that your hardware is usable for you. It's much harder when there are more variables - all you need to do is get back to your working software setup and then be conscious that from now on, upgrading anything in your setup should not be taken lightly.

            @si_edgey OK. Still it's very strange for me that the problem appears right now. I spent many hours using different PCs with different configuration (I'm IT guy) and never had any issues of this type :/

            Hi Peter,

            Just to confirm, everything is fine when you stop using the new monitor? so the problem appears to just be the monitor?

            If that is the case, I would suspect LCD inversion to be a potential cause of your problem. You might read about it here http://www.techmind.org/lcd/

            In short, an LCD pixel's voltage has to invert every frame to prevent degradation. This creates a flickering effect. All LCD panels will do this, even if they are marketed as flicker free. The way inversion is implemented and perceived will vary between monitors and LCD technologies. However, a 240hz monitor will flicker through inversion at 4x the frequency of a 60hz monitor. My suspicion is that this higher frequency flicker is giving you a migraine.

            Temporal dithering is another potential cause, your GPU will alter its output every frame even if displaying a static image to improve colour quality. Similarly to inversion, using a 240hz monitor will dither 4x faster than a 60hz, potentially making migraines more likely.

            If possible, setting your 240hz monitor to a 60hz setting will resolve any problems caused by faster dithering. It might solve the inversion problem, but I am not sure if setting it to a lower framerate will actually change how inversion is implemented - it may continue inverting at 240hz regardless of the framerate you set it to.

            Further assuming you have a migraine, it may take you several days to feel 100% again.

            Just chiming in as I had the exact same problem with a Dell monitor. S2716DG Rev. A09. Reading this thread turned me on to the fact that it could be pixel inversion or, coil whine. But yeah... I feel ya. It sits in the corner collecting dust now, which is too bad, because it was a great gaming monitor.

            I found something interesting about Covid-19 and headaches and light sensitivity. Check this out:
            https://www.theraspecs.com/blog/covid-19-coronavirus-headaches-light-sensitivity/

            FYI
            In my workplace almost every person was going through Covid19 or something similiar. The only person who wasn't sick was me. Maybe my symptoms are the result of having light version of C19? Because it was so strange that my problem occured from day to day. Like something trigger that.

            Of course it is only hypothesis, I will investigate other solutions in near time. For now my eyes have to rest.

              CorvusCorax

              After recovering from Covid I had visual problems, mostly unrelated to screen tolerance. It did worsen my screen tolerance noticeably, making me more prone to migraines from LCDs. However, I had noticed this trend prior to contracting Covid, but the infection may have accelerated it. I was very sick with Covid for 6 weeks.

                Seagull Wow! Really sorry to hear this.. that thing isn't a joke.. hope you will make a full recovery.

                  Sunspark JTL

                  Its quite unpleasant for sure! I'm very interested in what the research on the long term effects will be. After covid I found I had the following new problems: terrible anxiety (fortunately fading), joint pain (might be getting better but hard to tell), visual distortions (which got a lot worse after consuming hallucinogens), and a reduced tolerance to LCDs (but as I say that was getting worse before covid), and fatigue (fortinately relieved with caffeine and sugar).

                  Based on these symptoms, the best explanation I can come up with is that covid has triggered an autoimmune reaction. Where my immune system is attacking is serotonin receptors, receptor 5ht-2a best fits the symptoms. It is associated with migraines, visual distortions, and joint pain.

                  Getting back on topic

                  CorvusCorax

                  I've increasingly found that my food allergies are worsening my tolerance to LCDs. Not saying that's causing your problem, but I am saying you might need to think outside the box. If you can't find any help with the suggestions already made, it might be worth keeping a log of your screen tolerance to see if there is any fluctuations. If there is, logging your daily activities might yield some correlation.

                  Lauda89
                  I'm from italy too! Is there any way to keep in contact? I dont know how to send a private message 😕

                    Sofista90 You can click on the "chat" bottom on the top and there you can send a private message. Or you can add me on telegram "Andrea Laudani @Evilxardas"! Ciao 🙂

                    dev