Whenever I look at a monitor with a low refresh rate (ie not 80Hz), my hands start to tingle, and I get a headache (this is from the default 60Hz monitors at the school). What is this medical condition called? (I have had migranes, but so far poor monitors have only agrivated preexsisting migranes, they haven’t caused one yet)
I was at the University the other day, and the computer lab I was in had low 60Hz monitors with no apparent way to increase the refresh rate. Who would I complain to to get the refresh rate improved? Do I have any legal right to force the University to keep their computers, or the ones in the labs that I would have to use, at 85Hz?
Any help on the second paragraph would be most appreciated, I can’t work at all on a computer with a low refresh rate. Turning the brightness down to min only barely helps.
I don’t know what this condition might be called, if indeed it does have a separate name, but it does sound like an extremely mild version of epilepsy, in the sense that it has the same triggers that cause this effect in your brain. But you couldn’t call what happened to you any kind of fit.
As we have no idea where you are we can’t comment much on legal matters. Most Universities in Western countries would have a legal affairs office of some sort you could consult about your rights in that jurisdiction. If you are in a 2nd or 3rd world country then I doubt you have any such rights.
A monitor and PC would have to be very, very, very old not to be able to go beyond 60hz. I mean like circa 286-386 era old.
If this is a video card driver problem re the machine having generic or incorrect drivers, this is easily remedied by getting the correct drivers and installing them. You may have to open the machine up to see and indentify the video card or video chipset (if it’s integrated onto the MB).
If this is a monitor problem you can try making sure the specific brand and model # of the monitor is correctly indentified in windows and windows is not just using a genetic monitor inf file. The inf file will tell windows what refresh rates the monitor is compatible with. If the monitor is truly so old it cannot do more than 60hz spend $5 to $15 at a local thrift store and get a good, sued 15 or 17 CRT that wil do adequate resolution and refresh rates.
That’s not really true. Plenty of bargain/business style monitors will only pull 60Hz in 1024x768 resolution; the monitors where I work will only do this. Changing to 800x600 can buy you another 15Hz, but depending on what apps you need to use, the loss of desktop real estate might not be acceptable.
If it’s a computer lab, a competent admin might lower the resolution for you if you ask nice. I’d go see your prof or whoever’s in charge of the department before annoying anyone with anything involving the legal dept.
A low refresh rate drives me crazy as well, I was surprised to hear that this may have something to do with epilepsy. As a side note, if I attempt to play any computer or console games that use a first-person perspective, I get sick to my stomach and dizzy after just a few minutes. I was told this may have some relation to epilepsy too. Are there any tests that can be done for epilepsy? I’ve never had any other symptoms.
At the university I attended, the computers were locked down pretty tightly, and I was still able to change the refresh rate by right clicking on the desktop. Have you tried to change it yourself?
No, in windows 98 there was an ATI icon that I could click on to get to up the refresh rate, but anything I try to do in XP gets me an error that reads something like not enough privileges, or the administrators restricted it or something.
BTW on the Epilepsy thing, should I bring that up the next time I visit the doctor, or is it basically harmless? and no need to make a fuss over? (I haven’t visited a medical doctor for at least three years, so it’s not like I have many other medical problems)
I think that’d be more related to motion sickness. I young lady who worked here a while back couldn’t join in our network deathmatches because she’d get nauseous. She did try sea-sickness tablets but I don’t know if they worked.
Per the OP’s note of "no apparent way " about changing the reresh rate, I was assuming the OP had already tried various refresh/resolution changes to no avail and 60 hz was as good as it got so it must be a hardware/driver setup error .
In reading his last message it is evident this likely has nothing to do with hardware limitations, and is simply a network user permissions issue that is locking him out of making hardware changes. If he had said this from the beginning the solution would have been obvious. (ie simply get permission to make the refresh change).
99.99 % of the time school computer monitors at 60hz are there because that is the initial default “safe” refresh rate that the video driver suite pops initializes with for the first time, and the install techs are too lazy (or if the teacher, too clueless) to change it to a better refresh rate. It has nothing to do with saving “wear and tear”.
60!? Even 85 causes me blinding headaches after a few hours of use. At work, I’ve been changing my monitor to at least 100 whenever I log on, because 85 is just too low. Ridiculous.
There are at least two possible causes of this, one that you might be able to fix, and one that you probably can’t.
Under a default Windows XP installation, you have to be at least a Power User to access Display Properties. If you don’t log in to the PCs as at least a Power User, you probably can’t do anything to fix the refresh rate yourself. Any chance your school has any PCs with newfangled LCD screens? They’re “flicker-proof,” so to speak.
It’s also possible for an administrator to lock all users - including Power Users and Administrators - out of the Display Properties control panel specifically. If your login has sufficient privileges to change the registry, you can work around this with a very minor registry edit. You’ll have to dig around on Google to find it, though, it’s been quite a while since I looked that up, and the SDMB Administrators might not appreciate linking to such stuff anyhow.
If it was one of those old-school green or amber monochrome monitors, it used a long-persistence phosphor material that just about completely hid any flicker. I had an amber one; boy, was that easy on the eyes. A modern color screen with a short-persistence phosphor won’t show much in the way of streaking or blurring when stuff moves around on the screen, but it does look terrible [IMHO] at anything under 70Hz or so.
That could be an issue if the fixtures are older or poorly maintained. Modern fluorescent fixtures usually use high-frequency ballasts that operate at several thousand hertz, and have no perceptible flicker.
