Sony VPCF115FM hardware questions

Hello all,

I am new to the forum. This seemed the most apporpriate place to ask about my Sony VAIO VPCF115fm laptop. If there is somewhere else I should post, let me know.

I bought my laptop February 2010. Over time, the fan has gotten progressively louder. Sounds like it is running harder more frequently. I am setting up to clean the fan and upgrade the laptop, but to get the most out of my effort, I have a few questions before I begin.

Sony VAIO VPCF115fm specs
i7 Q720 Quad Core CPU (1.6 GHz) Turbo boost up to 2.8 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M GPU with 1 GB VRAM
500 GB spinning media hard drive
6 GB DDR3 1333 MHz RAM


steady state: Before streaming video my quiescent CPU usage is about 6%, memory usage is 3.37 GB and the fan is at its quietest even though it still makes quite a bit of noise.

Symptons
1 The Fan really picks up when I am streaming video with flash player. I am using Adobe Flash player version 15.0.0.152
2. CPU usage kicks up to about 12%, memory usage is 3.52GB
3. CPU usage looks stable; fluctuates between 9-15%. Memory usage creeps up. Memory is at 3.67 GB after 12 minutes of streaming
4. Memory at 3.74 GB after 17 minutes.
3. After a while the machine feels really hot and the video streaming will start to be jerky.

Questions:
1. Since I have a separate GPU dedicate VRAM, should the CPU usage be going up when I'm streaming video?
2. How can I check that my GPU is being used properly? I.e. might the graphics be being piped through the motherboard's resident GPU?
3. Is the RAM creep normal?

Separately, I am going to upgrade my hard drive to an SSD.
Questions
1. I'm having trouble figuring out what motherboard my machine has and the motherboard's specs. Where can I find them? I think my motherboard model number is MBX-215. Is this correct?
2. I want to use a SATA 3 SSD. Where can I find what SATA version my motherboard has?

Thank you