Second monitor takes fidgeting to connect

When I start my laptop I prefer to have my internal monitor turned off and just connect my external monitor, but if I do it that way at startup neither monitor works, at that point I have to re-plug the hdmi cable many times before it somehow magically refreshes into working again, the only reliable way to get the external monitor to load is to reset the laptop with both monitors being turned on from the settings and then wait a minute before the external monitor seemingly goes trough multiple reloads on black screen and finally properly loads, however this doesn’t seem to happen if the internal monitor is turned off. This happens using nvidia-dkms drivers. While the second monitor is loading and the internal monitor is turned on - xrandr seems to be able to detect it. Because it technically loads I’m not sure whether this is a firmware, driver or plasma issue, anyone else have any ideas?