PI Zero HDMI vertical red lines & signal drop, dead pi?

[bongo1024]

Looking to get people thoughts on weather my new Pi Zero is toast or not. I made a boot NOOBS SD, setup on my Pi 3. Put it into the Zero and no matter what I do the HDMI signal does not get detected. Only HDMI output achieved is as attached and has vertical red lines all over the image with the monitor eventually going black.

The following was all done with CONFIG_HDMI_BOOST set to the default, 5 and 11 on the Pi Zero.

- mini to HDMI + 1.5M HDMI cable shows the image at attached (red lines) on one monitor (old viewsonic with a HDMI to DVI on the monitor too). Shows nothing on the newer Dell 24" or TV, both straight HDMI. Dell 24" sometimes states that the resolution is incorrect sporadically. The HDMI-HDMI cable is a known good cable.
- Same HDMI cable in another Pi 3 works perfectly with the same SD card. Only cabling difference being the mini HDMI adapter on the Zero.
- Micro HDMI to HDMI cable (no adapter needed) shows no video on any of the four monitors tested on the Zero.
- Zero is booting.

So at this point I feel like it is probably the HDMI on the Zero at fault. It could be the mini HDMI to HDMI adapter but I feel like this is unlikely because the same no signal behaviour is shown when I use the Micro HDMI to HDMI cable.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.