White screen - Laptop doesn't recognise own display as default

Hi all,
I've had a search on the forum for the same issue but there doesn't seem to be any issue exactly matching this, so posting.
I bought an IdeaPad Flex 14 about 9 months ago. It was fine up til about 6 months ago.
Then it started to boot to a white screen everytime it's switched on. It doesn't matter if that is from Shutdown, hibernate or sleep.
As soon as the power button is pressed, there is a white screen, there is no booting information or Lenovo logo first, just straight to a white screen.
If connected to an external display (TV or monitor) then the 2nd display will show what you would expect: boot information, Lenovo logo, windows login. When you get to the desktop, everything as expected and all apps working.
You can also change the display settings to duplicate and the laptop display will change from white to windows desktop and the external display remains on desktop (so duplicate working fine).
If you change to extend, also working as expected.
Unplug the HDMI cable and back to white screen on the laptop.
I've noticed when you go into display options that the laptop seems to think that the laptop display is the 2nd display. I.e. if you click identify, the external display flashes a "1" and the laptop flashes a "2".
It's possible to change all this so that it's the other way around (laptop display now shows "1").
You can now unplug the HDMI cable (assuming you are on either the duplicate or display PC only option) and the laptop display shows the windows desktop.
you can use the laptop for hours with no issue.
As soon as it sleeps or hibernates or shuts down, when you start it up again, it's back to a white screen.
Connecting it to an external display, the settings are back to how they were again: laptop display is display "2" and external is display "1".
When the laptop has the white screen, there is never any flickering, just a solid white screen. When the external display is attached or the display settings changed, the laptop display responds immediately and is constant until another change is made.
Trying to make it clear that it isn't an intermittent fault and that it obeys very clear rules.
I've tried updating various display (and other drivers) and also regressing to earlier versions one version at a time - still the same issue
I've looked in the BIOS settings and made changes (carefully after researching and then changed them back again) - still same issue
I've tried a windows refresh (wipe everything except personal files) - still the same issue
I've tried a windows reset (wipe absolutely everything) - still same issue.
I'm not sure it's a hardware issue but possibly a driver or firmware issue. In my limited knowledge, I would say that at some fundamental level the default setting for the laptop is set to something other than the laptop display and this needs changing. But I can't find any reference on how to do this.
The laptop is Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 running Windows 8.1

Not likely a general firmware flaw as I've not seen this discussed before. Unless reflashing the bios helps (so you have a corrupted bios) or resetting the firmware to factory default settings then I fear a hardware fault. Sounds like something to do with the screen rotation mechanism as connecting a second monitor as the primary will force landscape rotation (simply disabling rotation may have an effect, may not). Thing is, this is happening before even the bios is fully engaged so it feels like a problem with the hardware mechanism/detector.
Do try imaging the drive then restoring to factory install. Just in case it is the UEFI boot mechanism getting messed up.
This is just my thinking. I may, of course, be very wrong. This is where I would start to work it out from though.

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White screen - Laptop doesn't recognise own display as default

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