HDMI Stopped Connecting to Projector- I tried absolutely everything.

I know this type of question has been posted before. I think I’ve read all of them, but nothing has fixed this very bizarre problem.  My Lenovo laptop had always connected to my Epson projector through HDMI, then one day it stopped connecting.  The strange thing is that my laptop connects through HDMI to any other source (tried 4 monitors) and the projector connects to any other source (tried 5 computers). 

The projector says ‘no signal’ even after many attempts to fix it (see below).  The laptop does not recognize a second screen even after taking many steps to force it to (see below). There were no updates or significant changes to either device that I’m aware of and I tried 3 different HDMI cables, all of which worked on other devices.

To further the mystery, it connects using an HDMI to VGA adapter which is then plugged it into an active splitter. It did not work, however, when I removed the splitter and connected the HDMI/VGA adapter directly to the projector.  To be clear, what worked was running HDMI out of my computer, converting it to VGA, plugging that VGA into a powered splitter, then plugging the VGA output from the splitter into the projector. Using the VGA adapter and splitter is not a viable solution for me because it is bulky and the audio jack on the adapter cannot reach the jack on my computer.

My laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11 running windows 10 Pro, version 21H2, build 19044.1826.  It has an Intel Core i5-4200U CPU @ 1.60GHz 2.30 GHz, an Intel HD Graphics Family 4400 card, 4 GB of ram, and plenty of storage space left on the C drive.  The projector is an Epson PowerLite 680.

Here are the things I did to the computer to fix the issue:

• Tested the computer with other monitors.  It connected, seamlessly, with two other projectors, a TV, and a computer monitor through HDMI.
• Tried ‘extend screen’, duplicate screen’, ‘second screen only’.
• Hit the ‘detect’ button in the Display Settings menu to find a second monitor. (None found)
• Updated all drivers including graphics card, monitor, and audio. Double checked on Lenovo’s site to make sure I had the latest.  (No option to “roll back” to older drivers)
• Checked for updates in Window Updater.
• Tried every single screen resolution option. (refresh rate only had one option- 59.994)
• Ran audio and video troubleshooters in windows.
• Ran SFC /scannow in command prompt and found no integrity violations.
• Ran chkdsk c: /r/x in BIOS
• Literally did a complete reinstall of windows using the ‘reset this computer’ feature in Windows.  I chose to ‘keep my files’ in the reset.

Things I did to the projector to fix the issue:

• Tested the projector with other computers.  It connected to 5 other computers successfully through HDMI.
• Hit source search
• Manually changed input to correct HDMI input
• Tried plugging pc into all 3 of the projectors HDMI inputs
• Factory reset
• Note: The projector is not network connected, so it did not receive a firmware update.

This is a seriously bizarre problem that has stumped everyone I have asked about it.  Can anyone think of what might be causing this or anything else to try?