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  • Intel HD Graphics eyestrain and using laptop without Power Supply as solution

Hello,

I'm from Poland, so first of all I would like to apologize you for not the best English. I'm reading this forum for some time and I am bit suprised how many people have issues with VERY similar sympthoms to mine. I can write here the story, about my experiences, devices, software, in general about my "fight" with eyestrain for last 8 years,and probably I will do it later, but in this (first) post I would like to ask each one who is owning modern Intel HD laptop to do very simple test, as I am very curious about your results.
Few years ago I realized, that using laptop with newest Intel HD drivers without Power Supply On removes almost all eye strain sympthoms...I don't know why, but it is like it is. Connecting it again is making my eyes strained again in 15-30 min. And disconnecting gives relief very fast. When I take closer look to my display (now i am using old Lenovo T430, but I've observed same with other newer laptops aswell) i see clear difference in colour "production" between power supply on and off. Screen looks less deep and much easier for eyes. And more stable. Another working solution for me (when I don't want to kill battery in few months) is just disabling Intel Driver in Device Manager. Ditherig programme also helps a bit (so for sure dithering strains me, but I am not sure if it's main cause of my problems, because with Power Supply Off dithering is still on place and my strain goes away), but it does not give me enough relief, I still need to disconnect Power Supply/disable Inter driver to work in full comfort. It's working on All Possible OS, Windows 7,8,10, Linux. (I mean - power supply disconnection). I can imagine, how weird it sounds...but I'm sure about what I'm feeling. My only guess is that removing AC power and switching to battery power is enabling some kind of power safe mode, which is disabling some graphic functionallity that strains me badly. It's noting related with any Intel HD driver settings, I was playing with 50 and 60hz (as by defauly removing power supply switches laptop from 60Hz to 50Hz), but it has nothing in common with my strain.
I want to add that Intel is not my only problem, I have issues with all PC graphic cards working on new drivers (even if it's older card), for example on my PC with Windows 10 and old Radeon 7700 I have eyestrain on every newer than 2012 year driver (I can use it quite comfortable with dithering disabled in Windows Registry and FRC disabled in my 6 bit + FRC monitor by forcing 6 bit output in AMD Control Center ). I have also issues with some newer TVs, with phones I had not them so far, but I am using old Galaxy S8. At this moment I don't want to confuse you with other topics and devices, please just test modern Intel based laptop with newest drivers and check if disconnecting Power Supply helps you aswell. I am very curious. Maybe it will be good point to start new investigation. I've alredy tried to find, how to trick OS to make it "think" that it's working on battery power when in real it's working on AC power, but no success so far.

    magiks changed the title to Intel HD Graphics eyestrain and using laptop without Power Supply as solution .

    I have the exact same experience with my MSI GE62 (HD530), when i run it on battery it's just much easier on my eyes, I tested it thoroughly.
    I don't think disabling intel driver fixes it for me though.

    Using oldest available drivers (10.18.15.4268) with ditherig and various registry hacks to disable DPST.

    It's very interesting what you've just wrote. Are there any registry hacks that can help with Intel HD eyestrain? Could you share them here? Ditherig helps a bit, but as I told in previous post not fully and it's still fat to call it comfortable.

    Regarding drivers, I am using ones installed by default by Windows 10 into my T430 - 10.18.10.4358.

    And regarding main topic - Let's see if others have same observations, because for me (and looks for you aswell), Disabling AC Power and Switching to Battery Power, even on newest laptop/drivers/Windows helps a LOT (not only a bit like ditherig or other forum-known tricks)

    Here's a reg file, it disables it everywhere you can:
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001]
    "ACUserPreferencePolicy"=dword:09020000
    "DCUserPreferencePolicy"=dword:09020000
    "DisplayFeatureControl"=dword:000003e3
    "Dpst6_3ApplyExtraDimming"=dword:00000000
    "FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000cff0
    "PowerAcPolicy"=dword:c1bac1ba
    "PowerDcPolicy"=dword:c9bac0b8
    "PowerDpstAggressivenessLevel"=dword:00000001
    "PowerGpsAggressivenessLevel"=dword:00000001
    "PowerPlanAwareFeatureSettings"=hex:ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,01,02,00,00,00,02,01,02,00,02,01,02,01,02,00,02,01,02,01,02,00,02,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,06,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,01,00,00

    Thanks. Is it working only on older drivers?

    • zlhr replied to this.

      Currently trying:
      "ACUserPreferencePolicy"=dword:00000000
      "DCUserPreferencePolicy"=dword:00000000
      "PowerDcPolicy"=dword:240c240c
      "PowerAcPolicy"=dword:200c200c
      as my driver seems to have it changed to this values by itself.
      You can also try setting:
      "FeatureTestControl"=dword:0000ffff
      but your brightness won't work and there may be some unexpected effects.
      cff0 is the safest bet, because it disables every stupid power saving system they thought of (DPST alone can be disabled by flipping the fifth bit from right side to one in your existing setting)

      magiks No, it should work for every driver with that creates this registry key, reportedly works even on newer Surface Pro using the newest drivers.

        Thanks, perhaps I'll try them. Can't we change those option in normal Intel HD Control Panel? There are some settings regarding Power Safe etc.

        Edit: For some reason I can't find in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class any folder which can be responsible for Intel HD Graphics - looks like Driver has not created it in my case...could you show how it looks for you? (I mean some screenshot etc).

        And by the way I want to ask, What version of ditherig are you using? Newest one or you are playing with some older?

        • zlhr replied to this.

          magiks Your driver has to create one, maybe it's called differently.
          My dithering is on 1.11.

            magiks I remember that on my X220 (same gpu) i had option of toggling DPST off only for battery mode, it was always on while charging for some reason, only this registry tweak could fix it.

              10 days later

              magiks This was a fantastic tip btw! Really improved things for me! Using Dell Power Manager to set it to only start charging at 20%

                  magiks , I had the same experience when I was using Manjaro KDE. Manjaro has TLP package, which controls disk and other power saving features depending on whether its on battery or mains. I haven't noticed such difference when I use Arch KDE though. Arch does not install TLP package by default.

                    Ditherig application (so disabling dithering functions on Intel HD), and swtiching from 8 bit to 6 and disabling dithering from registry lvl in Radeon Card also helps me, so I guess disconnecting Power Supply for sure is disabling something related with dithering. It's possible that some other options that are uncomfortable for our eyes are disabled aswell, but I guess dithering is the main one. It could be very good starting point for example for Intel engineers to investigate what is straining us and what option could be added in next driver releases, but I bet it would be very hard to contact them in so direct way and encourage them to do so.

                    Quad43 Yep, even manual plugging and unplugging powr is fine, but the biggest disadvantage of this solution is intense battery usage which is causing her short lifetime.

                      8 days later

                      Quad43

                      Could you tell me what do you mean exactly? Can you reach the state when your laptop is connected but not loading, so you are without eyestrain and you are not discharging your battery?

                      Cheers

                          Could it be noise from the AC power grid? Look up ground loop. It mainly affects audio but maybe it could make your led screen flicker.
                          I use to DJ for a company and they would pull off the ground prong off the laptop ac power plug. This would solve erratic clicking noises in the speakers/amps. For safety it might not be the best idea to pull off the ground prong. I do know the audio side of things you can get A/V adapters (ground loop isolator) that would flip the phase. This solved the issue. Perhaps there's a similar thing for AC power plugs? https://www.amazon.com/Ebtech-Hum-Plug-Style-Eliminator-Cleaning/dp/B07W682STV
                          ??
                          Obviously I'm no electronics engineer.

                            magiks A few thoughts:

                            Ditherig 1.11 was by far the best, as soon as I lost the ability to use that (it doesn't work, only 1.12 and weirdly 1.14 but not 1.13 either) helped me the most

                            Using Dell Power Manager and "Peak shift" I enabled this:

                                Quad43

                                Thanks for your insights.

                                Nevertheless, it looks like when the battery load is above 20%, battery power is used all the time right? It means you are just managing battery to avoid manually plugging and unplugging it, but battery is being used anyway? I am looking for solution to "trick" OS to let him think that he is on battery power while in real it would be on AC power and not using battery unnecesarly.

                                  5 days later

                                  thorpee
                                  I was also thinking of some kind of noise coming from the AC. I had similar issues, only realized after i brought 3 monitor lol, the third one was filtering it out nicely thankfully(Dell).

                                  magiks
                                  http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/inversion.php#invpattern
                                  Can you test these patterns? Do you have flicker when you are on battery? Do you have flicker when you are on AC?

                                      As far as i know I am not filcker sensible at all. I was testing it already on various monitors. I am sensible for specific graphic s / maybe Windows versions (but for sure less than graphics). I also was thinking about noise, but when I am disabling Intel HD driver I can use any Intel HD laptop for hours on Microsoft Basic Driver without any strain.

                                      dev