A year ago, I opened up the kids’ 2012 MBP because it was overheating with the fan on all the time. (This machine has had a long, hard life, including requiring a new keyboard when a glass of water was poured on it, several hard drive cables, a couple of batteries, several power adaptors, and I forget what else)
I extracted a chunk of lint about 1/2 cm thick and the consistency of felt from the fan intake.
After that, the fan didn’t turn on nearly as often, and thermal management during Minecraft was much better.
Every 6 months or so I clean out the fans on my macbook. I used to take them out entirely, but realized with an old toothbrush and a soft-handed can of compressed air[0] you can do 90% of the job without the headache.
I extracted a chunk of lint about 1/2 cm thick and the consistency of felt from the fan intake.
After that, the fan didn’t turn on nearly as often, and thermal management during Minecraft was much better.