4k TV shows black screen with odroid c2 on boot

Troubleshooting
1

order of operation:

  1. TV on first
  2. power odroid c2 via usb
  3. TV shows nothing but a black screen. i dont even see lines of codes scrolling through and onto the MATE desktop
    BUT then
  4. i turn TV off and back on, then i can see desktop and icons. no more black screen.

boot.ini has:
setenv hpd “false”
(default value of true gave me the opposite issue! whereby step 3 i can see everything BUT step 4 shows “no signal”)

config.txt has:
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_drive=2