Windows 11 Notification Center screws with my graphics card

[aprilwine]

Since about October 19, 2023, a lot of times when the Notification Center gets invoked, one or both of my external displays goes super saturated/contrasty. Here's a simulation of how it looks:

It looks almost exactly like two copies of the monitor image are being added together using a "color dodge" algorithm, which basically doubles pixel values and blows out anything over 50% brightness. This makes it impossible to see light gray lines and very difficult to read text, etc.

This can happen both when I open the Notification Center manually (⊞+N), and when a notification pops up (like a Gmail desktop notification). It took me a long time to narrow down what's triggering it. Sometimes it also seems to happen without the notification center being activated.

• This happens with two separate monitors of different brands, plugged into two different ports with two different cables, so it's not the monitors or the cables.
• It can happen with one monitor or both. Usually when one glitches, the other also glitches within a short period of time.
• Changing monitor settings, display resolution, or color profiles never fixes it.
• Messing with the graphics cards settings never fixes it.
• Sometimes unplugging/replugging the monitor in question resets the color, but sometimes not.
• Sometimes, disabling and re-enabling the NVidia graphics card driver fixes it, but sometimes not.
• Sometimes, restarting resets the color, but sometimes not.

For reference, this is a Lenovo Legion 7i, running Windows 11 Home v 22H2. All graphics drivers are up-to-date. The most recent Windows update was KB5031323 on 10/12/23 and there are no pending updates.

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59GHz
• RAM: 32.0 GB
• OS build: 22621.2428
• Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22674.1000.0
• Display adapters: Intel(R) UHD Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q Design