well unless hes machine and OS is about 15 years old i dont see how cutting part of the HDMI cable is going to help him in fact he will brake the HDMI cable and when he plugs to the tv it will not recognize by HDMI port in the tv ...but hey what do i know your the smart one.
The same nonsense is also inside the DisplayPort standard. I have one monitor with broken Standby (can not be switched back on without a hard power cycle). Switching it off by hand (power cut due to the bug), Windows will totally lose the set resolution etc. and muddle up/resize any windows to a tiny size. To this day, I've not found any solution. On the other hand, there are devices where the hot plug detection can be ignored. One of my monitors allows that if I disable "HDMI Auto Switch". Sorry for the OT.