I bought a Samsung 970 EVO SSD. I just wanted the faster and bigger storage. It might help with the loading times in games, but not a lot beyond there. About RAM: I have 16GB (pre-installed) and the RAM is never a bottleneck for me. If you want to upgrade to 16GB, go for 2x8GB. It’s a bit faster than the same RAM in 1x16GB. The GTX 1050TI is great for some gaming, but don’t expect the highest of performances. I too have had to drop the settings of games to somewhat lower settings. You could look into how your laptop is performing during gaming when it comes to heat. If the components get hot, the performance goes down. I’ve put my laptop at a small elevation to allow for more airflow and it helped me a lot. Or, just clean the inside of the laptop. Dust prevents good airflow and that heats up the components as well.

Mine did not stop working exactly, but it did start to wobble and miss click a bit. After I did my battery replacement, the touchpad fixed itself. It didn’t wobble anymore and didn’t miss click. I have 2 theories about it: 1. My original battery was swollen, which I never noticed till I replaced it. This could’ve put pressure on the touchpad and messed with it. 2. There was 1 very small component that dropped out of the laptop when I was working on it. No idea what it was, but that might also have messed things up. Not exactly your issue, but it might help you out.