restoring my thinkpad X200 to life

what a week. on thursday my corsair hx750 power supply up and died stone dead. i do not suppose i can blame it -- the power system here is awful, with frequent blackouts, generally preceded by a half dozen off-on cycles in quick succession. i have a biggish UPS between the mains power and the computer, but still . . . so until the replacement arrives -- remember when there was a computer store on every block? -- i am on my previously reliable thinkpad X200, which got a little flaky when i upgraded it to debian stretch a few weeks ago. i now have most everything working, the exception being wireless. the nice little switch on the side of the machine is turned on, but no light on the wifi led and wicd reports no wifi signals, though there is certainly a wifi signal,from a router about 3 feet away that every other gadget in the house recognizes just fine. lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net reports: 00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10f5] (rev 03) Subsystem: Lenovo 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection [17aa:20ee] Kernel driver in use: e1000e Kernel modules: e1000e -- 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5350 AGN [Echo Peak] Network Connection [8086:423b] Subsystem: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5350 AGN [Echo Peak] Network Connection [8086:1011] Kernel modules: iwlwifi 04:00.0 Memory controller [0580]: Intel Corporation Turbo Memory Controller [8086:444e] (rev 11) i suspect that i'm missing something really obvious. for lo, these many years, the thing just worked. now it doesn't. wired network works just fine. ​dep Sent withProtonMailSecure Email. Because privacy matters.​