networking disabled on laptop running ubuntu 16.10

[compdoc]

>I spent more than a few hours in October exactly trying to update the
firmware from Windows

You usually have the option to upgrade the bios by booting dos, or from
within the bios itself, and occasionally from linux. 

Also, some laptops have a switch that allows you to actually turn off the
wifi card to be safe when you're traveling.  

Lastly, there's a file that is apparently not used anymore that might be
interfering. You can try backing up the file to your desktop, deleting the
original, and rebooting *IF* it contains a definition for your nics:

/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules