Being affected by PWM, Temporal Dithering and other sources is a new issue that hasn't gained a lot of attention. It's also the point of this entire forum - to help you find others who know what you're going through and how to fix it! So if you're new, feel free to introduce yourself below or in a new discussion tagged with Introduction . To help us know how far wide spread this is and who it affects, feel free to let us know some details about yourself such as: Your location Your occupation Your age How you first identified you were affected Whatever else comes to mind Also, be respectable and play nice 😃

I'm in the USA. I am in Physical Therapy which while doesn't involve computers a lot, made documenting very difficult until I got access to some Non-PWM monitors. Studying was almost entirely useless since no matter what I tried, I simply could not remember what I studied. It was a extremely lucky break and something I've since been recovering from since the start of this year.

Alright - Hi I'm a student/software developer who lives in BC, Canada. Very competent in areas of programming/security, etc. Been learning programming since April 2007 but that's another story. Don't want to say too much but when I was born I had a rare optic nerve disorder - which may be the root cause of all this. Doctor's don't know. 🙁 I can recall how when I was little (back before LCD's were common, had no migraines and life was good) I was able to see "light trails" from certain kinds of lighting most notably in my mind some blue Christmas lights (LED) that had a "bumpy" texture when you held them. They flicker at what appears to be 60Hz power line freq but didn't give me any problems except the light trails back them. I still have them, maybe I should experiment. Unfortunately I get migraines from other sources then just lightning, that I know are not temporal dithering or screen related (maybe) but PWM/flicker is the dominant cause so it's not as simple as removing all flickering light sources in my cause (even though my family has) I got a new 15 inch Macbook Pro (see my thread on that) and it's been a lifesaver PWM wise. According to an engineering contact I have at Apple: No PWM until half brightness at which point it is around 100 Khz, which allows for the super low brightness Apple is known for. In fact I've been extremely light sensitive due to Botox treatments wearing off - been sleeping during the day in the dark due to not having a way of shutting out external sunlight which has been giving me headaches in my computer room/office. I will get curtains which should help 😛 and I see a doctor tomorrow for Botox and general things. (Going to try Win10 on Boot Camp when I have time, been my first Apple product in a while.)

Well. I come from austria (mid europe) and I recently finished my studies in engineering physics at the university of technology in my hometown and before that I finished a higher technical college with focus on mechanical engineering and automation. I'm 27 old have blue eyes and my mother tongue is german. First time I was affected was march 2014. I bought a new Lenovo (High End) notebook without OS. After some time on the new machine I was wondering what was going on with my eyes. So the ordeal started. I've tried many different notebooks, TVs and mobile phones. But on all systems I get the heavy eyestrain, headache, motion sickness, migraines, pain behind the eyes....pretty fast. As a result I'm using my old 70cm CRT TV and my old Asus Notebook 2009. Currently I'm working at the university and I can use my old private notebook which doesn't give me any eyestrain, olthough the display is mirroring pretty much. However I will go on to another company in November, which may get a bit problematic. Since I'm an "expert" in computanional physics and my new job will be very much about computers and simulations. As a consequence I need a solution very fast now. Furthermore I never had big problems with my eyes, thought I know that they are much more sensitive than others. However my eyes are very sensitive if somebody uses a laser pointer. In this case my eyes will hurt at least for some hous. Also old CRT computer monitors give me bad eyepain, but I've never had any problems with LCD, LED,... till march last year. Since I got the symptoms also on my older trusted LG FLatron monitors if I connect an new notebook to them, I guess that my problem has nothing to do with LED or PWM. I think some kind of picture enhancement (temporal dithering, hd smoothing, desktop anti aliasing,...) which my eyes can't focus on is the root of my problems.

Harrison Wait you say that you're using a "old 70cm CRT TV" but old CRT's give you eyepain. Are you saying that the old CRT you are using along with your old laptop gives you eye pain, or that particular CRT does not.

Well I thought that somebody will come up with this fact. Yeah. Using an old CRT Computer monitor gives me eyepain only in the right eye. I don't know why. I just have a light corneal irregularity in this eye which is corrected with the right glasses and contact lenses. (but this eyepain is/was much different than the symptoms I have now, so I don't connect the problems with each other. I only wanted to say that I know that I have sensitive eyes) No I've never used a CRT monitor with my current Asus notebook. I just remember that I changed to LCD monitors really quick and avoided working on CRTs many years ago (about 10years), because CRTs gave me the eyepain in the right eye. But I never cared about it, because CRT was replaced by LCD really fast at that time and so it was not a problem any more. However I never had any problems with CRT TVs (50Hz or 100Hz) even if the TV is flickering very much. You can see the CRT flicker of my current TV really good. But this is amazing me. Cause most people with our problems argue with "unvisible flickering", but if I don't have any problems with this distinct TV flickering why such a more slight "unvisbile flickering" should cause such problems. But if you want to discuss this point more precise we should start another thread.

hello everybody, I am a 23 year old Electrical Engineering student at TU delft, The Netherlands. I am current doing one semester in Barcelona as an exchange student. As everybody here I am also suffering from headaches and migraines caused by computer monitors. My problems started one and a half year ago, one year after buying the 13-inch MBPr (end 2013 model). For the first year I used the computer a lot (5 hours a day) till the problems started. Within 1 week I had two severe migraines attack (with aura). Both days I used the computer for around 6 hours and took a hot shower afterwards, thats where the migraine attacks started, the hot shower somehow triggered the attacks. After this episodes I had a few minor ones, but now with enough rest, lowest brightness and not looking to the retina screen to much (1 hour a day) I have the migraines under control. Now headaches arise after 0,5 - 1 hour of usage, thats the signal for me to stop.

So the problem might be at Temporal Dithering on Intel Graphics Chip. If someone could disable Temporal Dithering on OS X, it would be solved. If anybody has a result causing eye strain, please tell me or email vinkenbog@gmail.com A lot of Thanks.

Some parts of the forum are loading intermittently for me since two days ago... http://i.imgur.com/dt8fLlS.png

Forums are starting to work again and I am currently not seeing the bad gateway errors in Chrome dev console.

Welcome to LED Strain!

ThackeryBinks

Slacor
Didn't work:
iPad 1, 2, 3, (Haven't tried 4), Air 1, Mini 1, Mini 2, Mini 3. (Haven't Tried Mini 4 or Air 2, but guessing same results)
Galaxy Note 10.1. Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition.

Galaxy Note Pro. ( I react stronger to these devices than any other tablets).
Motorola Xoom tablet (Handled this tablet better than the others, but still no dice)
Dell Inspiron 7559 gaming laptop (IPS 1080 Display with Nvidia 960m)
Alienware 13R2 (TN Display with Anti-Glare coating & Nvidia 960m. This is the only TN panel to date that I react /severely/ to) (I react worse to this device than any other.)
BenQ RL2460HT Gaming Monitor. TN panel. (Reaction isn't terrible, but no dice)
Insignia 40" 1080p TV. NS-40D420NA16.
White Westinghouse 55" 1080p LED TV. LD-5580Z.
Samsung PN51F4500BFXZA 51" 600Hz plasma TV. Zero flicker noticed. I bought the 720p variant of this tv and the 1080p variant. No luck with either.
Epson H331A PowerLite Home Cinema 705HD LCD Projector.
Gameboy / PSP / Virtual Boy / Gameboy Advance / Nintendo DS XL / Nintendo 3DS / Game Gear / Sega Nomad
* ASUS PA248Q IPS 1200p monitor for photo editors. This IPS monitor affects me less than any other IPS monitor, no go though. PWM.

Did work:
Any CRT tube type television.
Any CRT projection television I've viewed so far.
ONE specific LED / LCD television by TCL. LE48FHDF3300ZTA is the model number. 240hz, 1080p. LED backlighting. I've looked for years with no success on finding any information on the panel technology. (I find as my condition progresses, I react more to this TV. But it's lightyears better than any other lcd type for myself.)
Zalman MZ240ED 24" LED 1080p DVI monitor with a TN panel.

Asus x205ta Laptop. 768p, TN panel. Atom core budget laptop.
A few older laptops with TN LED panels, unable to obtain model numbers.
HP Dv6-1334-US Laptop from 2009-ish TN panel / LED.

ASUS VE278H 27" 1080p TN Panel GTG monitor (Partial reactions, but not terrible)
* Live theatre 😉

(I haven't found many devices that are non-reactive unfortunately.
I have a Canon DSLR for PWM testing. Still reactive in the absence of PWM however.
So far with myself the only thing I can gather is safe is TN panel technologies, and not /all/ of them. As the condition progresses, some TN panels become more difficult as well.)

Sorry this is so long, I've been at this for many years... didn't know anyone else had problems likewise 🙂

Seagull

ThackeryBinks

This is actually quite similar to me, a common factor I've found is that all the screens I can't use utilise polarised light. TN also does, but for me (and you it seems) some of them are ok.

EDIT: scratch the bit about plasmas, just seen they are a no go for you.

Seagull

ThackeryBinks

You might find the onyx book ereader android tablets useful. They use e-ink screens, which prevents using them for video, and can make web browsing tricky - but are great for anything primarily text based and about as eye friendly as it gets. I'm thinking of getting one to use for word processing (I'm a student). They are very pricey though for what they are.

Might also be worth waiting around for amazon to release an electrowetting kindle/tablet. Its a new technology so can't say how eye friendly it will be, its in the same vein as e-ink but has good enough colour/refresh rates to display video. It doesn't use polarising filters, and doesn't need a backlight to work - so its a good bet it'll be easier on the eyes than lcd/amoled tablets.

APC75

Seagull Might also be worth waiting around for amazon to release an electrowetting kindle/tablet.

NICE! When is this bad boy launching. Really want to try something like this. For years I have been waiting for an eink product with no backlight but never got to test one.

MagnuM

Man, one thing seems certain. Although many of us have the same symptoms, it seems like the causes are all over the place! Everybody is different...

I just ordered a pair of TheraSpecs Over RX on Thursday night that utilize the FL-41 tint. We'll see how that goes. Normal yellow-tints like Gunnars don't seem to do the trick for me.

I still think my issue in particular is due to the light source. 0% brightness and f.lux set to 5000K equals symptoms way down on my Dell U2410.

Seagull

APC75

The majority of e-ink tablets don't have backlights - is that what you meant?

It was rumored to be released this xmas, but Amazon has been awfully quiet. It does appear to be genuinely in the works though as Amazon is currently advertising to hire 'engineers with product mass manufacturing experience' at liquivista (owned by Amazon), the place that makes electrowetting displays.

JTL

Alexmam I should mention the Nexus 5 also has an LED backlight so that's an LED thing that works for you.

Alexmam

JTL for some reason I have no problems with Nexus 5 screen, but my eyes hurt from Huawei Honor 6 plus which I currently use. I installed blue-light protection glass and it feels more comfortable to look at the screen. However, for watching movies long time I still put Jins glasses. Only like this my eyes are ok with that phone.

JTL

Alexmam Very interesting.

Alexmam

JTL with phones it is easy - just install blue-light filter glass and problem almost solved.
But with PC the problem is more complex because there are few factors, not only blue light: 1) video drivers, 2) flicker. Until now I couldn't find any new device which I can use.

I can work in Windows 7 on 2012 LED laptop with Standard VGA driver long time. But when I tried Windows 10 on the same laptop with Standard VGA, my eyes hurt after 15 mins.

JTL

Alexmam

I do think Microsoft did change the standard VGA drivers between Win7 and Win10

Alexmam

JTL I don't understand, what could they change in driver so it makes people's eyes hurt

JTL

Alexmam Differences between EFI and legacy BIOS on how it handles video resolution?

Alexmam

JTL everything was fine before LED and integrated video. Damn these manufacturers.

Chasanne

I am 68 years old. About seven months ago, I experienced a painful & on-going injury when I inadvertently looked into an LED light from about 1 1/2 feet away. Since then, I am extraordinarily sensitive to the blue light radiation emanating from LED bulbs. Diagnosed with Photo-Oculodynia with a photosensitivity very specific to LED lighting. Being treated with Neurontin with fair to good results.

ensete

Yes, unfortunately the new eco friendly lghtbulbs are known human health hazards, but our government cares more about reducing electricity usage by 5 cents a year vs not harming it's citizens.

I encourage you to write your congressman and ask them to resubmit and support the BULB Act, which removes the restriction on incandescent lighbulb manufactur and sales so folks who are sensitive to lighting can light thier homes with bulbs that do not cause them discomfort.

JTL

ensete Make incandescent bulbs great again 😛

Is this going to turn into a political rant about the USA?

ensete

JTL No political rant. The BULB act was submitted by a Republican senator but defeated under the Democratically controlled congress at the time. Now that Republicans control the Congress I think it has a much better chance of passing.

This isn't a call to ban LED or CFL lights (although nothing would make me happier to see that), it's simply acknowledging that a portion of the population suffers from a sensitivity to eco-lighting, and those individuals should have the ability to purchase lighting for their homes that does not cause them pain.

JTL

ensete Fair point. I was making a joke.

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