How do I check if cooling fan is working?
does`nt seem to come on as often as it did after being on for a while.
Is there a diagnostic box I can bring up?
Easily replaced if kaput on a Dell?

find the vents on the laptop and feel for air flow – if its going in or out the fan is working.

If your laptop overheats it's not working.

Sppedfan is what I used to check, it gives the rpm of the fan and the temperatures inside the laptop.

Cheers DD, suppose that was the obvious answer 😳
Sobriety…reading the last para might give that a miss, not being very pc savy = not be a good idea. Ta tho.

Ah, never bothered to read that! It can be used to set fan speeds and the temperature at which the fans come on, which is a great way of destroying your computer if you get them wrong. However if you don't go changing the settings it simply displays temps and speeds (which is what I use it for)

I changed a fan unit on my old laptop. As someone said, you'll know it's not working when your laptop shuts down and the CPU (located next to the fan) is red hot. You can restart it, but it will shut down again within minutes.

Changing the fan, I bought a 2nd hand fan assembly off ebay and borrowed a laptop to follow the manufacturers online instructions from. It was reasonably straightforward.

XP Pro told me it was overheating and then started to shutdown. Bought a new fan & one of the IT guys fitted it for me.

cheers

if you think it is working it might be worth a quick suck with the hoover on the vents to clear some of the crap – worked for me

Get some air duster sprayed into the intake vents, and put the hoover at the other end to suck out any dust, etc.