How can I test my laptop's fan?

I've been using a IBM Thinkpad T22 since my computer's motherboard gave up on life and I've noticed the CPU runs at 100% almsot all the time, i believe this to be from a virus or something as the task that consumes it is task manager most of the time, although explorer, and svchost get to about 30% each at times. Because of this my CPU gets i would think very hot. It's a PIII and i've had no problems. However usually the 1 system fan blows very strongly, very hot air when it's under heavy load, lately it hasn't done this speed increase i'm used to, and i feel almost no air comming out. so in turn the bottom of the laptop is getting very hot, to the point of minor burns. How can i test to see if the fan is operating, or if it has failed?

Would a program like SpeedFan tell you anything about the RPMs? I would have thought at that time they did have fan monitoring?

Yep, Speedfan should be able to monitor that. It should also tell you your CPU temperature. I would say that if it feels too hot all of a sudden, it probably is though. Laptop fans are known to fail. They are also annoying to replace because they are small blower fans and you would need to find a matching part, at least to a certain extent It seems you've been quite unlucky with technology lately. That really sucks...

well, now it seems to be blowing away, so i guess it's working, it my bee clogged with dust so sometimes it doesn't go, i'll try and blow it out with compressed air

id reformat that laptop also...
if you really suspect a virus the easiest way to get rid of it is a clean sweep

my dad definatly doesn't want to reformat and it is his computer. it's NEVER been reformated since it was first set up...... oh well, maybe he'll give in eventually