Eye fatigue

[lordroddington]

I have an interesting problem. I got a 226bw which I'm really happy with, except for one thing. I seem to get really bad eyestrain when I look at it. I've tried a lot of things with it, like turning the brightness way down, but I seem to be having a hard time fixing it. I've had an LCD for years, so its not like I'm not used to using them. I feel like I'm constantly having to focus my eyes. Its not flicker either, because CRTs drive me nuts.

Anyway, not sure if there's much of a solution other than finding the right brightness/contrast settings. One thing I've considered is reflections off of the glossy bezel.. I dunno. Anything ideas?

 

[SickBeast]

If you sit too close to the screen, you`ll get eyestrain (especially if the text is too small).

Also, you should adjust your DPI setting in windows so that all your fonts are bigger.

Another thing you could try would be to use Opera as your web browser as it has the full-page zoom feature, allowing you to make websites bigger so you can read them more easily.

 

[lyssword]

maybe try lower resolution see if that helps

 

[Pacfanweb]

Got the same monitor this week, have the same problem.

It was WAY too bright out of the box. I'm more comfortable with the brightness down near 50 percent.

It also shimmers, or motion blurs, when I'm scrolling, and is really noticeable on a white page.

 

[madh83]

I've got the the same monitor but my eyestrain was actually a lot better with this one. I do not really notice motion blurring, not sure what shimmering looks like. It is too bright naturally though, so what I did was set the gamma down to 4 on the nvidia panel. Reducing gamma should help quite a bit, otherwise the issue may be related to something outside of your monitor.

Edit: Be sure you've turned off magicolor, that thing is an eyesore

 

[lordroddington]

Wow, really fast replys, thanks a lot. I'm away from it right now, so I'll try the gamma thing when I'm in front of it next. Magicolor, I agree is garbage. Default brightness is insane.

It seems fine when I'm looking at one spot on the screen, its when I move my eyes. Sitting back from it helps with that too, since you don't have to move your eyes as much. I'd really like to avoid adjusting the resolution and DPI, since it doesn't seem to relate to text - looking at pics or gaming does the same thing, I think it just must be a problem with my setup. I've got a second LCD set up (one of the reasons I bought this, I love dual monitor) so I'm looking back and forth between them a lot. But I've had dual monitors before as well. Anyway... I'll try some of these things, thanks again.

 

[j0j081]

I just use the text setting on my 206bw which settings the brightness to 6 LMAO!

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: lordroddington
I have an interesting problem. I got a 226bw which I'm really happy with, except for one thing. I seem to get really bad eyestrain when I look at it. I've tried a lot of things with it, like turning the brightness way down, but I seem to be having a hard time fixing it. I've had an LCD for years, so its not like I'm not used to using them. I feel like I'm constantly having to focus my eyes. Its not flicker either, because CRTs drive me nuts.

Anyway, not sure if there's much of a solution other than finding the right brightness/contrast settings. One thing I've considered is reflections off of the glossy bezel.. I dunno. Anything ideas?

i went on medical leave in corporate America in 2004,
following a bad outcome from LASIK eye surgery.

what i really needed was a high humidity work
environment, related to a damaged cornea & tear
film ("dry eye syndrome")

what i got was a variety of LCD monitors. i was
scheduled for a 19", with slightly larger pixels
than a 17".

in the meantime, the 17" was replaced with an
18", all Dell LCD's. i found that, at that time &
stage of my vision, the 18" was the best fit !

but i didn't want to complain when they gave me
the 19".

i suggest looking at a variety of LCD monitors,
anywhere from a few to a "whole bunch". you will
probably find some that are easier on your eyes.

also little things like having a matte (non-shiny)
bezel, instead of a shiny one, or a matte coating
on the display itself, can also make a difference.

one other aspect, sometimes when people look at
monitors they forget to blink, or don't blink as much,
and their eyes dry out.

 

[lordroddington]

Yeah my old one was a 19". I went with the 22" for the new one because its somewhat the same idea, same resolution as a 20" but larger pixels.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Ever get your monitor to not bother your eyes? I'm still debating exchanging mine to see if another one is different.

I just increased my font size, so I'll see if that helps. Got the brightness about 35 percent right now...contrast is low, too. I'm wondering if it's just too damn big. Maybe I should get a 20 instead.

 

[TC91]

lordroddington, do you wear glasses or have far sighted vision? that might also be the cause if that was the case. for me, i ve alwyas had eyestrain when looking at crt's for too long, but never at all when im looking at a lcd. my viewsonic right now has the contrast and brightness set to 100% with the color setting @ 9300k, and i never had any eyestrain even with the brightness and contrast at max, but on my old viewsonic crt, i always had eyestrain no matter what the settings were after a few hours. you should also be giving your eyes a break very so often too; what i do is look away from the screen every 20-40minutes or so at something that is not a monitor/tv/etc for about a minute and return, but i often forget, but i found that it helped me out when i was using my crt a couple years ago.

 

[lordroddington]

Nope. That's the thing, I've had perfect vision my whole life, and have never had problems with monitors. As an experiment, I tried it with the brightness down and the lights off, I found that my eye fatigue actually was reduced. It makes me wonder if it is just the positioning of the lights in my room makes really noticeable reflections in the glossy bezel. If that's what it is, I'm not sure how to proceed. I really don't feel like having to go through the whole shipping it back and exchange process!!! But having a monitor that causes you consistent eye fatigue really isn't good. Another thing I've considered is I'm just not used to it yet. When I first got my laptop the screen gave me a bit of eye fatigue too, but after a little bit it went away, I guess I just got used to looking at it.

 

[madh83]

I forgot to add this earlier, change the color to warm. Natural light comes in at around a color temperature of 6500k, which warm is the closest to. It's supposed to be the easiest to read under.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: wwswimming


one other aspect, sometimes when people look at
monitors they forget to blink, or don't blink as much,
and their eyes dry out.

I'm bad about this.
Especially if I'm working on a drawing or cad file.
I get so into the work and concentrating on what I am doing that I don't blink.
It really does make the eye strain worse.

I started a routine where every 30 minutes or so I just close my eyes for about 10 -20 secs.
Really helps with the eye strain.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: madh83
I forgot to add this earlier, change the color to warm. Natural light comes in at around a color temperature of 6500k, which warm is the closest to. It's supposed to be the easiest to read under.

will try that sometime thanks for the tip although I think I prefer balanced for graphics.

 

[lordroddington]

Sitting almost 3 feet away from this thing, I still have the problem. I've tried warm colors, brightness down, gamma down, larger text, and screwing with the sharpness. I'm not sure whats causing it. Before I make an attempt to return this, is it possible that this size just won't work? That doesn't really fly for me, since the dot pitch is relatively large and I'm sitting about 3 feet away. But I don't know, maybe my panel happens to suck, maybe it really is the glossy bezel. Anyway. I've sent a customer service thing off to NCIX, their return/exchange policy seems to rule out LCDs, but this isn't some silly dead pixel issue, I can't keep using this monitor for fear of damaging my eyes. I'll see what they say.