Well a full day of working on it–mainly waiting for the Dell Diagnostic Program to do its thing–I believe I’ve fixed the laptop.
What I’ve come to believe was the problem was a dislodged connection under the hinge strip which runs along the top of the keyboard and covers the power button because the button "feels" right now, clicking on with a palpable resistance, and it makes sense that my pulling on the wires quickly was enough to mess with the insides of the computer. Saved myself a few hundred bucks likely by poking around a bit myself.
What I’ve learned too is to backup the data at the very least, and have almost completed that by copying to an external hard drive. I’ve also, now that I’ve been knocked out of my lull of complacency and trust, faced the dependency factor and the reality that machines, just like people, can turn on you.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology