martin Thanks for the reply man - the first thing I always do with a new laptop is install a fresh copy of Windows so I'm currently running build 1607 of Windows 10 Home so it's the earliest one. That's interesting that you had problems after getting a new machine, makes me wonder if an old driver for the GTX 1050 might fix things, I've installed the oldest driver I could find (381.65) to see if it helps at all.
I've now had a weekend of testing and the computer is totally usable for me with the GTX 1050 disabled in Control Panel and ditherig.exe running to disable dithering on the Intel, feels nice on my eyes. As soon as I enable the GTX 1050, my eyes begin drying out over 5-10mins and then they start to get painful. Really annoying as it's clearly a software issue. I've got a thread going with Nvidia and I've also posted on the Nvidia Developer forum but no responses from them. I'm trying to get my customer service enquiry escalated to a programmer for some help!
I can't help but feel that for the right person this is gonna be a really quick fix for all of us, but where would I find this person? Basically I need an Nvidia driver programmer or someone like the guy who made ditherig.exe. I've tried contacting him but not heard anything back, would be happy to crowdfund some cash for development costs.