external monitor not being recognized via vga cable...

hello. recently i decided to get an external monitor because the lower half of my laptop screen is blanked out due to dropping it some months ago. anyway, i wanted to watch things fullscreen, so i found an old external monitor. the first time i plugged it in, and for many other times, it worked just as one might assume -- fine. however, recently i just tried to connect again and while the computer clearly recognizes the input of the vga (it makes a sound and resizes the screen a bit), and whereas it initially immediately went to dual display on the monitor in the past, it just displays that there is no signal. furthermore in the screen resolution menu it tells me "another display is not detected".

i made sure to update all of my drivers to no avail, have tried other monitors, etc. i'm getting frustrated as this is a simple matter usually of just plugging in the vga between both the laptop and monitor, but this has become a matter that has consumed considerable time now. can anyone help me resolve this issue?

no solution found still. when i hit windows+p and cycle through the options, which it's on duplicate now, still nothing happens. here are my display settings via detection too:

i've tried multiple monitors. the first monitor i tried was actually my roommates and it worked fine, but then i found another monitor for super cheap so i gripped that and it was also working. tried my roommates again after having issues with the one i was using and it also didn't work. tried various cables but it's still the same result. really confused here. no errors in general either.