Defective fan causing boot failure?

I had that thought but was in denial the fan and proximity would fail simultaneously. 

It’s now working as expected. The passthrough started working so I reassembled everything. Started pairing the controllers and got to the part where I needed to go to the Meta. There it had a message that the device update was complete and to tap to continue. Did that and the Q3 went dark - back to a grey screen. Seemed to validate that the OS 2.3 update was part of the problem. Rebooted, passthrough worked and I was able to complete the set up. 

Summary: a faulty fan can cause boot failure. Just because the fan momentarily spins up when power is applied or on shutdown doesn’t mean the fan is working correctly. OS 2.3 was part of the problem. Meta needs to do better, a LOT better. This was refurb device from them and first failed at under 60 days when a ribbon cable was not properly positioned and became pinched, plus they have it rest against a sharp edge of metal. The Q3 failed again at about four months due to a faulty fan, and glitchy OS 2.3. Again, do better Meta. People spending their time and money fixing your failures.