My mbp 2012 is very slow when used to compile stuff these days, and struggles to build react projects and docker images. So I built a small server out of secondhand parts to offload those tasks away from my old laptop.
Using vscode's remote development support (which lets you mount a remote machine in the editor as well as doing port forwarding), there is almost no change to my usual development routine but massive improvement to build time and battery life, for ~$300 in parts. I guess I will postpone upgrading my laptop again.
This setup also works outside of my home network because I use zerotier on both the laptop and the local server, though I also configured my router to expose the server's ssh port in case I can't use zerotier for some reason. I also configured autossh to connect to my small vps server and port-forward the local server's ssh port there as an additional fallback because my isp sometime doesn't assign a public ip when the modem is restarted.
Macbooks accumulate a lot of dust during their life, and they're not really servicing-friendly. But many people reported lower temperatures die to better cooling.
This also means longer lasting batteries and faster CPUs (because of less thermal throttling).
It won't completely resurrect your MacBook, but it might give a significant performance boost (and lower the operating temperatures).
I agree on this. Re-pasting the cooler + clearing up the dust boosts the performance quite significantly. But beware that you need to pay attention to the rubber gasket and how it seals to the body. On the rMBP 2015 the camera cable needs to be clipped into the gasket carefully to maintain the seal.
I did opened the macbook several times to replace the disk, ram and the battery and I always clean the dust from the fan surface, but I never considered opening the fan and reapply the thermal paste. Maybe I'll do that later when I have some extended downtime.
Using vscode's remote development support (which lets you mount a remote machine in the editor as well as doing port forwarding), there is almost no change to my usual development routine but massive improvement to build time and battery life, for ~$300 in parts. I guess I will postpone upgrading my laptop again.
This setup also works outside of my home network because I use zerotier on both the laptop and the local server, though I also configured my router to expose the server's ssh port in case I can't use zerotier for some reason. I also configured autossh to connect to my small vps server and port-forward the local server's ssh port there as an additional fallback because my isp sometime doesn't assign a public ip when the modem is restarted.