Overheating issues...

Okay so I have a 2 year old Dell Inspiron laptop. A few weeks ago I was using it and out of nowhere the screen went blue and it powered down automatically. The laptop itself felt abnormally hot to the touch afterward (and yes, it sits on a USB-powered external cooling fan any time I use it.) Anyway, I was able to turn it back on a few minutes later, and after 10-15mins of use, the same exact thing happened again.

Is it possible that the computer's internal fan went out, or could something else be causing this extreme equipment failure?

You an easily check the fan, is warm/hot air being pumped out the cooling vent? Is the fan making noise? Flip it over, is the fan moving?

Could be as simple as dust clogging up the vents, get a can of "air" and blow that *****.

Google your exact model and see if it's a lemon, friend had a 2 year old HP blow out due to the manufacturer using a ridiculously small heat-sink on the GPU. There's a class-action lawsuit against HP for her model of laptop.

Warm/hot air has blown out of the exhaust ever since I got the laptop... Just never thought anything of it, and never had any issues with it until just recently.

I cant say from here wheather your internal fan went out but try a external water cooling system