My poor little Mac Mini Server (i7 from mid 2011) died when I broke a mysterious piece of wire and connectors whilst upgrading the hard drives.
I have been patiently trying to find a replacement for that IR board/cable for many months until someone finally broke down and admitted that the only things that cable did was turn the green LED on and off with the power button and send & receive signals from "my IR remote controller" which of course I have never owned.
So chuffed to just stick it back together, turn on and it worked first time, just fine.
Now I am on the lookout for a bigger better monitor...