• Hardware
  • Recommendations for new monitor

Lauda89 So not a great idea, other 800€ to the bin. I will try the LG OLED monitor 27GR95QE as soon as it will be available in Italy.

IMO if a new system is "bad" with the same GPU and monitor that was good with a previous system, no amount of playing with monitors will fix it.

    JTL I agree with you. But the 7900X + 1660 super was usable connected to the LG B8 OLED TV ( in the bedroom, so I was far away from the TV) so I wanted to try a WRGB OLED monitor and hope for the miracle.

    JTL Also, are we sure that we can talk about good monitor and bad monitor?

    I mean, I have been using the BENQ CCFL since 2006 so I would call it a good monitor but with the two new PCs it becomes a bad monitor (and also with the latitude if I update W11 to the latest updates).

    Even the alienware, it was a good monitor with the setup I had but connected to a MAC it was always bad.

    What if the monitor has nothing to do with our problem? I mean the type of panel, backlight, refresh rate etc... maybe it is just the signal coming to the monitor that makes it a good monitor or a bad monitor the problem is this signal seems to be impacted by 1000 factors.

    Lauda89

    No I haven't found any solution, but not that I would be really looking into it, only in the past several weeks. I was tired of it that I put it to rest and used the system for remote operations only (I have some good use of the PC this way - so the graphics card is there for nothing of course 🙂 ).

    In the past several weeks I tried if a different monitor will make it any better I so far tried 5 of them and no help, although higher refresh rate seems to help a bit. I also updated the BIOS, no help just like in your case. Some of these new monitors are quite OK with my old system, but this new system is a no go. So again, final proof it is not primarily the monitor in these cases.

    So you are saying that you ruined your old system by upgrading the BIOS??? At first I thought the system was not usable as it stopped booting…? This is very interesting indeed and it means the motherboard problem is intentional, it is not a physical issue of itnerference or anything of the sort. It is a deliberate action by the motherboard manufacturer. Can you please confirm? And are you absolutely sure of that, are you sure you are not imagining things after all the testing? And do you see the issue even in BIOS now on the old system, just like you see it on the new ones?

      machala I too had put the PC aside for a couple of months, I was too stressed and when I start having headaches and dizziness it takes me 4/5 days to recover 100%.

      Yes, the BIOS update did not give booting problems, I simply had started having headaches even with the old PC after the bios update.

      Don't forget that the first attempt with the 7900X + RX480 I did with a copy of the old SSD so the software was identical to the old PC. The differences were on the rest of the PC: motherboard, ram (ddr4 vs ddr5), CPU, PSU, case and liquid cooling.

      Without evidence, I would point the finger at the motherboard/bios.

      Lauda89 One of the things that can happen is the high frequency of switching between different monitors for testing in and of itself can cause some strain. You basically just want to choose the one that created the least amount of long session eye strain that also has the features you want, and stick with it, then immediately and move on to experimenting with rear and overhead lighting and glasses prescriptions - as I detailed in my last two comments.

      But still, after over a month of no eye strain with the Acer Nitro KG241Y, if I turn off the backside lighting strips that I applied, I still get a bit of eye strain. Lighting is important. I no longer need to use the over-head light but it's still nice to have. I always keep the backside strips turned on when I use the computer. Both lights are connected to a USB Y cable that allows the lights to turn on and off with the computer.

        Staycalmsyndrome I will try! Thanks 🙂

        TrantaLocked You are right, i am switching too many devices and it's useless.

        But now i am writing from an asus vivobook of a friend and connected to my BENQ CCFL is perfectly fine, so i played some hours to magic. Unfortunately is a bad PC i3 1115G4 so i can't keep it like main PC.
        So it's the second notebook with intel 11gen that i can use. I am thinking to sell the custom rig with 13700K and buy a good notebook with intel 11gen like an XPS or something similar.

        Or i can try the arc 750 with the 13700K before giving up.. but i think that the problem is the motherboard/bios not the GPU!

        8 months later

        degen

        Thanks @degen for the recommendation. I bought a 28" 4k 60hz Acer monitor, it's an Innolux panel like the rest, and I have not suffered from the same eye strain I was getting from 27" panels I tried earlier in the year.

        Now, the monitor like apparently every single 28" 4k monitor on the market hilariously, does have some issues with horizontal pixel stretching as the ratio is not true 16:9 but I am not using it for any design or measurement accurate work so not a big deal for me.

        3 months later

        I finally found a modern monitor that works for me by looking for ultra low-flicker monitors using a professional photodetector. I tested about 100 monitors and found only three that have virtually no flicker.

        I bought 11 (one for myself and 10 to resell at cost to see if it works for others). I created an eBay listing if anybody is interested in giving it a shot. I offer 60 day returns, so worst case scenario you have to pay for shipping both ways.

        https://www.ebay.com/itm/145603787681

        You can read more about my process here: https://ledstrain.org/d/2598-help-wanted-to-measure-flicker-andor-test-a-flicker-free-monitor

          4 months later

          Clokwork May I ask which monitor you had for your listing?

          I've been using two that are working really well for me:
          Lenovo Q27h-10. 27"
          LG 27MQ450-B 27"

          Here's the full list of monitors that had reasonably low flicker (I tested over 100, so these are the best 20%)

          ManufacturerModel #RefreshColor depthResolutionScreen sizeResponse time
          SamsungU28R5560Hz8-bit + FRC3840 x 2160284 ms
          HPM27h FHD75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080275 ms
          LG27UP60060Hz8-bit + FRC3840 x 2160275 ms
          SamsungS27BG40240Hz8-bit1920 x 1080271 ms
          HPM27h75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080275 ms
          HPM24h75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080245 ms
          Dells2422hz75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080244 ms
          LG24mq450-B75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080245 ms
          LG27mq450-B75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080275 ms
          LG29wp50s75Hz6 bit+ FRC2560 x 1080295 ms
          LG32up83a60Hz8-bit + FRC3840 x 2160325 ms
          Philips45b1u6900ch75Hz8-Bit5120 x 144045 (curved)4 ms
          MSIg271cp165Hz8-Bit1920 x 1080271 ms
          MSIg321cu144Hz8-bit + FRC3840 x 216032 (curved)4 ms
          Lenovog32qc-30165Hz8-Bit2560 x 1440321 ms
          Lenovoq27h-1075Hz8-Bit2560 x 1440274 ms
          AcerEI322QUR sbmiipphx165Hz8-Bit2560 x 1440321 ms
          AOCCq32g3su165Hz8-Bit2560 x 1440321 ms
          DellSE2422H75Hz6 bit+ FRC1920 x 1080245 ms
          5 days later

          It's interesting that some of the models you listed have 8-bit + FRC. These are typically the panels I struggle with the most. I try to set everything to sRGB when possible. I do wonder if some panels still use FRC to attempt to make sRGB look better. That's why I tend to look for 8 bit native monitors. Thanks for the list! I can seem to use my BenQ entry level 8 bit monitor, but it's not as comfortable as I'd like. I can't game on it for long without feeling fatigued and a bit overwhelmed which is weird as I'm certain it does not have FRC and supposedly uses DC dimming within certain brightness ranges.

            Clokwork It's interesting that some of the models you listed have 8-bit + FRC. These are typically the panels I struggle with the most.

            I don't think I've ever actually tried 8-bit + FRC, but for whatever reason, 6-bit + FRC doesn't seem to bother me. It might depend on the graphics card, though, because I'm not a gamer so I generally just use integrated graphics. I'm a programmer, so it's mostly just text on a white background for me.

            The LG 27MQ450-B 27" is 6-bit + FRC and I love it...

              GregAtkinson

              Are all of these tested with the thorlabs pda100a2? Thanks to you, I also acquired one but still might need to upgrade the oscilloscope.

                photon78s Are all of these tested with the thorlabs pda100a2

                Yep! It might be overkill for what we need, but I'm really happy with it.

                photon78s might need to upgrade the oscilloscope

                I have the base model Picoscope (2204A) and it works great.

                GregAtkinson Huh, I'm also a programmer but I can't stand any monitors with 6bit+FRC for programming. Even with an old CCFL TN at 100% backlight to avoid PWM and a safe old Windows 8.1 laptop connected I can still notice the FRC (especially when moving my head). It feels like the background of the code editor is distracting me away from the text.

                6bit on Windows laptops is a lot more manageable because usually on Intel graphics laptops you can disable FRC entirely with ditherig.exe which will reduce it to true 6 bit with tons of banding.

                6bit on laptops vs. monitors:

                Since I don't care about seeing banding, a panel on a laptop that only claims to be 6bit on Panelook is sometimes even a good sign, because it reduces the chance that a claimed "8bit" panel is actually doing FRC anyway through its TCON chip etc.

                On the other hand, when I get around to finding a good external monitor though, I instead prefer to actually seek out "true 8-bit" - - because contrary to laptops where the GPU often does the FRC, on external monitors it's almost always "built into" the panels themselves.


                I basically have the opposite situation because playing games (e.g. connecting a Nintendo Switch) is actually fine on that same CCFL TN monitor! This is mostly because games are usually in constant motion anyway and most of my FRC problems happen on still or mostly text-based content.


                However, regardless of panel, any Windows version after 1809 is unusable for me (at least on laptops) for some reason on many devices, seemingly due to a strange subpixel rendering technique where I can notice some red and blue subpixels emphasized when I look very closely at the screen. See my T480 thread where I actually confirmed this on two separate laptops.

                This is only semi-related, but I figured I'd drop this general word of advice here:

                • Win10 1809
                • Windows and driver updates disabled (with Winaero Tweaker)
                • oldest Intel integrated graphics driver possible
                • all available Intel video enhancement settings disabled or set to lowest value
                • ditherig.exe (dithering will disable immediately after launching)
                • (if it's a laptop) DPST disabled in addition to whichever ones of these show up for your device: Panel Self Refresh, Dynamic Refresh Rate, Enhanced Battery Life for Gaming also all disabled

                is a great "safe" test combo for displays that is really effective for nailing down which issues are truly the panel's fault instead the software's fault.

                It helped me narrow down my Lenovo T480's issues to simply "the Innolux panel has very intense and noticeable PWM that shows up on camera, even at max brightness" instead of all of the even worse disorientation/tiredness/nausea/depth perception issues I was having on "current" Win10 and Win11.

                Downgrading to 1809 and applying the steps above, shockingly, basically fixed or at least significantly reduced all of those deeper issues.

                Now, only the "really annoying eyestrain and pressure" symptom remains, which from my consistent experience, I can tell is directly associated with that laptop panel's PWM.

                  DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I can't stand any monitors with 6bit+FRC for programming

                  Recently I've been thinking that there are probably lots of screen-related triggers that affect some people but not others. Backlight PWM dimming seems to affect a lot of people, but FRC seems to affect a smaller percentage. For me, I seem to be affected by even very small amounts of flicker that comes from the pixels or the backlight. The amount of flickering is so small (for me) that it's only measurable with a very sensitive photodetector + oscilloscope combo.

                  I seem to be lucky regarding Windows - I can use any version of Windows without issues (as long as the monitor is good).

                    GregAtkinson For me, I seem to be affected by even very small amounts of flicker that comes from the pixels or the backlight.

                    This definitely applies to me too. I can usually even "see it"! And then, I'm pretty sure what's happening is that causes my eyes to want to automatically and subconsciously want to focus more to try to "see this very subtle thing more clearly" which of course causes strain or blurry/double vision.

                    The "more subtle or trying to be hidden it is" it's actually worse for me for the most part. Because on the opposite end, I'm totally fine with extreme flashing strobe lights at concerts, I do not have epilepsy, and have only only experienced one migraine many years ago in my entire life. But the moment it gets into """invisible""" flicker territory such as on most LED lightbulbs is when I start experiencing all the issues.

                    I'm glad you can use all versions of Windows! I have a suspicion that some of the issues with more modern Windows versions are only present on laptop LCDs and not external monitors, and/or possibly only occur on integrated graphics.

                    dev