Can I do upgrades? Laptop is old

[Jennifer Marion]

Hi, I have an Acer Aspire E-14, not a very good laptop but it was only ever out of convenience as I had a wonderful desktop but it died it died a bad death and now I am stuck with this laptop.....I don't know where to start. I can't stay connected to the wireless modem, it drops out constantly unless I park it right next to the modem. If I'm lucky we have a 'good' internet day. This is not a household issue, this is just MY laptop issue. I work in my garage/office where I get almost zero internet connection. I need to be able to access my online store. Often it spends two minutes thinking about turning the page.
If anyone else is in the house using internet, there go my chances of staying connected, no radio...zip zero, it's like i'm last in line for internet.
I need graphics......this kills me. I struggle to edit, this laptop freezes with graphics, even too many small graphics open.
Often I can't stream video. I need to stream video...help me please......
Also, I'd be over the moon if I could watch Netflix while I work lol
I thought about spending a couple of grand. Honestly, my business doesn't need the expense right now.
What can I upgrade on the laptop that I have to make this work better?

Thanks for listening to my whining, Trin

 

[johnb35]

Can you list the specs of this laptop like cpu, how much ram, what operating system its using? If you work out in the garage, then you'll have to figure out how to get internet out there. If modem is in house and you are in garage, you won't get good signal. If you can, run an ethernet cable out to garage.

 

[Laquer Head]

I'm by no means a networking expert, but my wife and I had this issue in our home where there were random dead spots. Didn't matter on the distance, sometimes just moving one way 2 feet would kill or boost the signal.

So, we purchased an Asus repeater, connected it to our router and then placed the repeater in the basement and boom, for like $100 (Canadian) we now have access and speed in all corners of house - including garage and nearly out to the sidewalk (20 feet away)

This is the unit we bought, https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Networking/RP-AC68U/ and it even has a USB port so you can attach a hard drive to it and have portable/removable backup for your business..etc

Again, not sure if this is a suitable solution for you, but its an option.

As @johnb35 mentioned, let us know a bit more about your laptop specs and also what wireless router/ other networking stuff you may currently have and we'll try to help you a bit more for your specific setup.

 

[Agent Smith]

I have an ASUS N66u router and it has terrific coverage. So you may not even need a repeater, but it sounds like a router replacement. As to the graphics, that's gonna be a whole new laptop with a dedicated GPU.

 

[Agent Smith]

It's an Acer Aspire E-14, folks.