David,
I had a similar event about a year ago when my server went down...it blew the motherboard. Although I had my data all faithfully backed up, I had no back up server in which to install it. I was down 10 days!!! My IT guy kept replacing this, replacing that...cost me a fortune. Fortunately we found the exact same server on ebay and even more fortunately, it was in a town only 2 hours away. Mr. IT traveled there to get it (more money) and then removed the racks from the old server, slipped them into the new and in about 10 minutes I was back up and running. I really still have not yet recovered from the down time nor the financial burden.
Later he finally discovered it was the motherboard, replaced it and so now the old server and the replacement one are both working. I sleep a little better at night now knowing I have a back up server.
10 days is unacceptable. There's no way it should've taken 10 days to diagnose and repair a broken motherboard. Even if your IT guy was blindly guessing, that's way too long. If the motherboard blew, I'm assuming it didn't turn on which should've tipped the IT guy off that is was either the power supply or the motherboard. (Processor/CPU failures are very very uncommon, RAM Errors cause beeps or blue screens). A power supply tester could tell if your PSU (power supply unit) is bad instantly (<$20) or you can use a spare PSU. Which just leaves the motherboard. Should've been diagnosed in an hour at most.
.png "ACUF Donor I")
