What works for you, what do you use now without problems?

martin Aber hallo
I have been using a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014) since I changed job in January. At the start I had troubles but then I figured out eventually it was fluorescent and LED lights on the ceiling to drive me insane. Fearing for the worst, I have not updated the OS for the past 3 months. It is High Sierra 10.13.4.
I would like to stress that in the past I always judged MacBook Air impossible for my eyes, by inspecting displays of friends or at electronic shops. That is another source of confusion for me, because normally I can immediately tell what does not suit me.

As to phones, if you remember from my posts of early May I could not use my Samsung Galaxy On5 anymore without pain and strain after a software upgrade. I factory-reset the phone and I can use it again. I gave in exploring other phones. I bought three, last a Nokia 3310 3G, and, shocking, I cannot use that either. The screen is not the classic one of 15 years ago. It looks to me the usual useless upgrade. They did not improve anything except working hard to screw my eyes :-(

Laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 460 so long as the brightness is above 75% (I generally always have it maxed at 100%)

Monitor: Benq BL2710 2k as the primary monitor.

I am still not completely happy with the laptop and monitor though, but have had them without too many problems for the last 3 years or so.

Phone: LG v30+ which does not appear to give me headaches, (even though testing shows pwm with an unusual waveform) however it is uncomfortable to look at below 40% brightness, where the pwm becomes noticeable.

AGI I would like to stress that in the past I always judged MacBook Air impossible for my eyes, by inspecting displays of friends or at electronic shops. That is another bite of confusion for me, because normally I can immediately tell what does not suit me.

I find this sort of inconsistency so baffling. I spent like an hour in a store with a Matebook D as I wanted to try Rzen to rule out the "intel is bad" theory. It was fine in the store. I bought it...came home and didn't even use it for a day. When I turned it on I got terrible strain within minutes. I cannot explain this. At home I sit by a well lit window...or use incandescent lighting...so if anything it should be BETTER at home than in a store with flourscent tubes. I nearly bought a Macbook Air after a couple hours in Best Buy didn't bother me...but I was hesitant to spend more so waited. A week later in an Apple like 3rd party store just 3min on one strained me. I cannot explain this. Same OS and both stores with flourescent lighting etc.

At this point I am so nervous about displays in general I don't trust my own body as EVERYTHING seems to set off strain so I don't know what is caused by some tech issue, if anything, and what is anxiety/psychosomatic. Even my Kindle was giving me a headache the last time I used it and its NEVER bothered me. That just doesn't make sense. My old CCFL laptop strains me now too....not as much as new ones but still does. I don't get this.

hpst At this point I am so nervous about displays in general I don't trust my own body as EVERYTHING seems to set off strain so I don't know what is caused by some tech issue, if anything, and what is anxiety/psychosomatic.

I am 100% behind you on this one. I'm so confused as to what is the actual issue these days as I'm starting to think that my own anxiety about getting headaches and migraines is actually as strong a trigger as the screen I'm using. Sometimes I can use my Dell XPS 15 9560 for most of a day (with some breaks) and feel fine. Others it starts me on to a series of cluster headaches. I've wondered if switching between different screens relatively quickly might cause this - looking at my phone, the TV and then the laptop for example, but even with constant analysis of my own body I just can't explain why sometimes I'm triggered more heavily by the same tech than others.

I'm at the point where I feel envious of friends and my wife who can just sit on her phone all evening looking at Instagram without any pain, yet I'm unable to work or do the things that I enjoy such as gaming and music production without pain! I'm also concerned that persisting with a Macbook for 2 years has permanently damaged my eyes and this is why I am so sensitive now when only 8 years ago I used to do games development working on screens all day long before playing games all night and never get a headache. Now if I use screens for more than a few hours a day I'm almost guaranteed a headache the next day, which often develops into a series of migraines over several days.

Anyways, my working setup (which doesn't DEFINITEIVELY work but does mostly as long as I watch my hours):

Home Computer: Dell XPS 15 9560 running Windows 10 build 1511 + ditherig + Benq V2400W monitor - always gives strain without ditherig but I can use comfortably for a few hours (maybe even a day) with it running

Studio Computer: i7 8700 with GTX 760 running Windows 10 build 1511 + Benq V2400W monitor - extremely comfortable with no tweaking

Keep fighting the good fight everyone..

si_edgey I'm also concerned that persisting with a Macbook for 2 years has permanently damaged my eyes and this is why I am so sensitive now when only 8 years ago I used to do games development working on screens all day long before playing games all night and never get a headache.

I know its impossible not to worry and I do it too...but I really think this particular fear isn't very likely. If you have physical eye health issues they will impact every part of your life and will be discovered in eye exams...they wouldn't just manifest on certain displays. No rationalization for that makes sense without extreme reaching. I don't know about you but if I avoid displays for a while the strain and headaches go away so that's even more proof there is nothing wrong with me physically.

Things like "rodents lost retinal cells with blue light" sort of studies just fuel this fear and nothing helpful ever comes out of those anyway. If you've seen an eye doctor and don't have vision problems in every part of your life I think you can put that to bed as much as humanly possible.

si_edgey Yeah it's disappointing not having an answer...even if that answer is not something we want to be true. I left my last eye doctor's visit sweaty and depressed from all the anxiety. My barrier now is deciding if this is technological or psychological....it's definitely amplified by the fear. Ruling out dithering as a global cause will help me here since that's the only technological theory left with any reasonable probability to it.

I've learned with other pains and symptoms that often if there is no discernable physical cause with thorough testing it's because there is no physical cause. A lot of people who had flourescent light problems back in the day didn't have them until someone mentioned the flickering etc...or it only bothered them at work in a job they hated but they were fine out having fun. But once you KNOW about a problem you can't let it go even subconsciously. I never had a problem with LEDs in general until I learned about PWM and got a newer laptop already primed for a problem...used to be big into LED flashlights etc but now am afraid to pick one up. When I see a big LED sign or billboard on the road...even whe its far away...I get instant eye pain/headache jabs just looking at it for 1-2 seconds....that's just doesn't really make sense and feels more conditioning than some actual problem.

Once we see and decide something it's hard to let go of that and the suggesting any pain can be psychosomatic feels like an insult. I am hoping ultimately this IS just psychosomatic since that means we are not just allergic to modern tech or to some setting we cannot really change....but its not easy to get to that point of acceptance and generally requires exhausting reasonable physical causes for our minds to believe it so don't know if I even can get there if nothing physical is proven.

KM KM can you test other displays and see if there is any correlation between these spikes and your strain? This is a simple test that would give us good data...if all straining displays have a 450hz spike etc then we have a lead...if it doesn't correlate then it's not the issue. This is a USB oscilloscope with software right? Could you take it to a Best Buy or Media Markt or whatever is in your country and get some broad data? We are seriously lacking in any reproducable data and every good and bad thing anyone has seems random and unexplainable.

martin Asus PB238Q has FRC: 8 bits (6 bits + FRC)

https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/2455800

Maybe using VGA, removes FRC.

JTL BenQ XL2720Z also has FRC: 8 bits (6 bits + FRC)

https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/ec326c