emmasam

Why is my laptop fan on from virtually the moment I start it up, when it never used to be. Its on a laptop stand so free air passes under it, there doesnt appear to be much in the way of dust etc blocking the air vents, and it has only recently started doing this in the last couple of days. Seems like there is a million programmes running in the background that i cant see, when in fact all i have open is my email account, and IE. It doesnt put itself to sleep either after any period of inactivity even though the power options are set to do so after 15 minutes. I am on windows 7, using Internet Explorer. Can anyone suggest what i might do to see if there is a problem, and if so how i might rectify it? Grateful for any help thanks