Again updating this rather than making a new post.....
I managed to resolve the issues I had with the thinkpad and macbook by selling them 😅 not ideal in the long run but at least I got some of my money back.
My PC I've had a bit more luck with, although it was expensive the 7th gen Intel rig I got worked mostly for me so I sold the 1050ti and got a 1660 super then sold the intel gear and got a Ryzen 3600 and I can use this on the latest windows 10 without problems MOST of the time and performance is good. I found the intel setup did cause framerate drops whereas the Ryzen setup is much smoother as its quite a bit more powerful.
I've not tried much productivity stuff on the desktop, mostly just games and browsing.
I found intially that limited RGB on my TN flicker free screen was 'good' but my headaches got worse and worse, so I changed to FULL rgb I've also read on here in a few places that limited actually dithers more?
I now use FULL RGB on my ultrwide IPS screen and its ok in most thing (games) such as worldWarZ, COD Warzone, Battlefild 1 / V, Division2, METRO games etc.
But.... I played 'Black Mesa' the Halflife 1 'remake' (Even though its several years old) and crushing dizzyness and headache. This has taken me down another rabbit hole for headache problems related to FOV (field of view) in 1st person games, potentially this is worse due to my ultrawide monitor. (this monitor is also flicker free) but I've read conflicting things such as high FOV and low FOV can be 'bad' but what is the middle ground.
I tried setting things the same accross several games with FOV at 80 but today is really bad headache wise.
I had a week or so where things were great and I did make some changes such as:
- stopped eating bread (sandwiches) every day for lunch (apart from a couple sandwiches and a pizza) - so I went from a sandwich every lunchtime to a couple quick lunches and a couple pizzas in a month (I mostly have a baked potato and salad for lunch now)
- I ran 3 times a week - only about a mile at a time but this seemed to help a lot, I'm not overweight or anything like that and my diet is mostly good but this seemed to help, then it rained a lot where I live so I didnt run for more than a week, the headahes returned somewhat.