16 inch Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 2023 laptop testing:
Using PDA100A2 photodetector, the switch between PWM-like display backlight fluctuations and relative flat line is at 85-86% brightness as adjusted in Windows 11. Overall, the 7i backlight fluctuations are less than those of the M2 MBP TB as I needed to set the photodetector gain to 50dB to notice these tiny levels of flicker. On the MBP, I only needed 20dB gain.
jordan BUT when I enter bios and configure CPU settings and also short time booted in HiveOS(Linux mining OS) The x670e Asus makes me feel AWFUL.. the MSI b650m itx one didn't bother me like the asus. I now am a strong believer in motherboards causing issues
My research is inconclusive, but I have recorded certain interactions between at least motherboard BIOS's and GPU causing temporal dithering, even when not in a running OS with drivers.
It's actually Iphone 12 PRO. It feels better to me than a laptop for some reason. I use low brightness.
I just got a Zephyrus G15 3080 with Ryzen 9. So far the screen with dGPU and ColorControl doesn't produce Nausea. Also the whites are not as shiny for me.. letters and background. With the Pro 7i it was profound.
Its just a temporary solution and I'd prefer a strong laptor overall, but from very limited use it seems to not induce the same sensations I had with the Pro 7i gen 9.
photon78s yeah it's super frustrating! I just can't get over how bad one motherboard is compared to another board.. it triggers my nervous system instantly with weird symptoms. Warm with chills, nauseous , anxious, head pressure, also hard to focus on screen without overwhelming feeling.
I do need to work on diet, maybe see if certain foods are a trigger. I do notice temporary relief sometimes after eating with some symptoms which is weird.(My friend experiences this too)
After seeing the other guys comment with the 7i I definitely am not in a rush to try it lol. I am really curious about the Intel arc desktop GPU maybe that could be good if Intel is correct with the no dithering statement.
That's interesting as others here find it hard to tolerate modern iPhones. So the 12 PRO has PWM according to notebookcheck: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-iPhone-12-Pro-Review-Powerful-Smartphone-with-Retro-Styling.504562.0.html
Not sure about temporal dithering. Perhaps other aspects of the display (smaller screen for instance) makes it comfortable. Hope the G15 continues to work for you!
I already posted a video here where you can see the flickering on win10 1809 in comparison with win10 21h1 (I don’t remember exactly)
So, lat week I experimented on my safe w10 1809, found the datasheet of the installed panel, and using CRU I increased the monitor refresh rate from the factory 60 Hz to 72 Hz (keeping in mind pixelclock limit searched in datasheet) with autosettings for other synchronization parameters. Then I felt that I couldn’t use the screen, or rather, I could, but after it I felt pain in my temples. This went on for 4 days and yesterday when I looked at the taskbar I saw the same "fast chaotic pixel movement". I set monitor back to 60Hz, but it didn't help. I set nvidia's output to fullrange, but that didn't help. ColorControl also demonstrated no-dithering.
Only a complete reset of EDID settings via CRU helped. After that, I saw that the taskbar has a “lazy slow standard flicker” and after another 1 day I get back my safe PC.
Any ideas?
Edit: Nevermind, I think this is just circular polarization. See this post where Seagull mentioning using tracing paper to help with polarization effects.
https://ledstrain.org/d/2315-vertical-and-horizontal-polarization-as-eye-strain-trigger/4
Have you tested your screens by looking through polarized sunglasses? On my MBP TB, I can never get the screen to go fully black by rotating the sunglasses to a certain angle like 90 degrees like with the 7i and other displays.
Instead I get a blue-purple image here:
https://ibb.co/cQ5Yg5v
Right side is looking through the sunglasses rotated at 90 degrees which is the maximum I could get to dim the screen. So it looks like only certain wavelengths are polarized?
photon78s Perhaps you were adapted to the default refresh rate
I can use another 165hz monitor without issues…
I change refresh rate in safe w10 1809 setup to "not registered" and got same noise (which gives me eye-strain) as in video with "bad" win versions I tested
Have a look -> https://filetransfer.io/data-package/iwnh2gOL
Only EDID reload (I think from monitor's eeprom) made reset to "default lazy flickering"
Can OS flickering be due to bad EDID interpretation? I can find thread there where guy desrcribe same feeling as mine when set non original framerate, but when I install all win versions above 1809, I get chaotic pixel movement equal I got setting non original framerate in "safe win version"
I've read users observing thin white lines in between pixels on certain displays. I don't notice them on my 7i or MBP but I remember seeing them on an older model Ryzen Legion laptop (don't know the laptop model panel unit). This reviewer calls it a "rastering effect".
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/qxxtoq/thinkpad_x13_gen_2_amd_initial_initial/
There is a display lottery, and I lost it. Mine has the InfoVision M133NW4J R3, and it’s really bad. Out of the box, it has a warm/reddish cast, though a calibrated color profile may help. It also has a weird rastering effect, where you can see faint lines between the rows of pixels when you get moderately close to the panel. Looking at it with a 20x loupe, it seems that the space between rows of pixels is slightly further apart than between columns.
So I was interested in how light polarization might affect eyestrain and I tried some tracing paper in front my LG display. Looking through my polarized sunglasses I see no darkening effect however which why I orient the glasses. This means no more polarized light. The visibility is not too good for fine detailed work but passable only if you can get the paper fully pressed against the screen.
https://ledstrain.org/d/1421-tracing-paper
I found this research on smartphone light polarization (circular versus linear) on eye symptoms. Not sure about the conclusions of that paper but relevant to some observations on this forum. For myself, it seems that I'm not too sensitive (humans are supposed to be not sensitive at all to polarization?) to either type of polarization. Some iPhones are circularly polarized and so is my M2 MacBook Pro Touch Bar laptop.
Comparison of the influence of light between circularly polarized and linearly polarized smartphones on dry eye symptoms and asthenopia
PSA Update!
My LG 27gp95r-b is showing fainting horizontal banding across the entire width of the screen. Still too early to say if this causes increased eyestrain as I have to be very close to the screen to see it so it went undetected during my several months of ownership so far. This is an ips UHD rez 144hz monitor with 8 bit + FRC dithering. Hopefully this is not a widespread QC issue.
