Cpu fan continuously cycles on and off

Help! The cpu fan continuously cycles on and off. There might be a minute between cycles or it could run for 10 minutes and cycle off for 2 minutes, then come back on. This appears to have been happening over the past week.

Any ideas as to how to fix? FYI, I am a user and not technical.

It's likely not going all the way off rather it's going faster when the CPU load is higher.

This isn't something you necessarily want to fix. Are you running anything more CPU demanding recently? E.g. installing Folding @ Home will put more load on the CPU.

Has the ambient temperature gone up? This would cause the fan to kick on more often. It is getting to be summer time and I know my PCs are running hotter these days.

Have you checked that the case fan(s) are operating? If the case fan isn't working or is jammed (stray wires can often jam them) then this would cause your CPU fan to kick up more often because of the ambient temperature again.

Have you vacuumed your PC lately to get all the dust and cat hair out of the vent slots and off the motherboard? I did this recently on my gaming computer (it was filthy) and it's running 5-10C cooler now. You'd be amazed what a year or two of dust can do ...

Also if you have recently moved your computer you might simply be noticing this more.