Elan 630 controller/keypads/panel/Cat5e dead

My home has an Elan 630 controller, two Z-valet keypads, and a Via! Music panel for a 3-zone/6-input system. The keypads and panel are connected to the controller through an independent Cat 5e system (cables and patch panel). The keypad and panel cables from the patch panel are wired to a punch-down block from which a single Cat 5e cable goes back to the patch panel and then to the 630.

This system worked fine for about eight years. Then the Via! panel began to fail to initialize. The screen flickered, then went black. Elan supposedly fixed the panel ($470) but when I plugged the panel's cables back into the Cat 5e and coax jacks, the same problem recurred. Could the 630 have been the problem all along? What else could cause such a problem?

Hoping to find a work-around, I then connected one of the Z-valet keypads to the Cat 5e jack for the panel and swapped cables at the patch panel to match the new location of the keypad. The keypad, which had been working fine, now no longer even lights up. Moreover, the other keypad, still in its original place, seems dead also. Now nothing works, except for one red LED on the 630. Could swapping around the keypad and panel with the system powered up have caused this behavior? What else might be wrong? I've tried power cycling the 630, but that doesn't help.

Bill

One more thing: an Elan power supply is connected indirectly to the punch-down block and provides power to the keypads and the panel. All of the wires from the Cat 5e cables coming from the keypad and panel jacks are connected to the punch-down block except for the blue wire in the cable from the panel jack. That blue wire was bent away from the block and toward one of the wires from the power supply. Each conductor from the power supply is connected to two wires coming from the punch-down block.