Ethernet shield woes

I have a simple project, a simple home security system. When a door is opened, it beeps a piezo and connects to a URL (this is a perl script that emails me that a door was opened). So if I am not home and I get an alert I know someone else is at my house.

I had my ethernet shield working for awhile, but after about 8 hours it would stop working and need to be reset. The piezo would still buzz, but it wouldn't hit that web server. I had posted before about this.

Now, the ethernet shield doesn't seem to work at all, it doesn't even light up for activity. The wire is good, and I haven't touched it in weeks (or maybe months), whereas I used to hit the reset button each day before I left for work.

Is my ethernet shield fried? Do you think I shorted it somehow with all the resets? Any way this could be related to the problem I had before where it would stop working after 8 hours?

Have you had any thunderstorms or anything around the time it died? Being connected to Ethernet also means connected to your modem, which is connected to the power lines and phone line etc

This may seem stupid, but have you tried unplugging, then plugging the shield back in?