Never had this problem on Debian Linux, FWIW - even when upgrading to a new release. Of course sometimes stuff gets marginally slower due to new security mitigations or whatever, but not in a way that's even perceptible, let alone catastrophic.
I have Clear Linux running on a Haswell Core i7 and it's great, but it doesn't run on a Core2Duo I've got laying around.
Also, it needs EFI booting - not sure yours is new enough for that.
The hardware is old, sure, but I don't need it badly enough to justify building/buying something else and I had it laying around from the mid-2000's when I was testing WiMAX rollout in my city. Figured it would get a bit more use instead of living on the "old hardware" shelf (shelves) in the basement.
https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-ma...