your thermal doesn't poll.... make it poll like this:
echo "2 seconds" > /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/polling_frequency
or wichever thermal zone is in /proc/acpi/thermal_zone. then verify your
trip points in the same THRM directory but in the file trip_points. you
should see something like this:
critical (S5):           105 C
passive:                 76 C: tc1=3 tc2=1 tsp=150 devices=CPU0
active[0]:               67 C: devices= FN1
active[1]:               57 C: devices= FN2

in the eg passive means that your cpu is downclocked since it has passed 76
degrees C
active [0] means that your fan is triggered to on
active[1] means that the fan is not triggered and it is shut down.
the critical point is when the system shuts down.
if the polling_frequency tweak doesn't work then you have another problem
(eg i had to compile the fan and thermal module included in kernel since
modprobing them would not start the fan). if it works copy the tweak command
and put it in some init script (i put it at the start of /etc/init.d/xdm so
that i'm sure it loads after acpi, since that file doesn't exists without
acpi loaded).
then try installing kima if you're using kde and add the kima kmenu applet
to monitor some things. you should be able to see that the processor hardly
passes 60 degrees while thermal goes high till the passive point and over;
if you monitor also the cpu load and freq you should be able to see how your
processors reacts to programs. remember to also install the klaptopdaemon
since is quite useful in controlling the cpufreq_utils governors and acpi
settings. try also the laptop_mode-tools and see if they can help you have a
better use for your disk. the last thing that you can also install is the
hddtemp for monitoring your disk temperature.

2007/10/9, Marco Calviani <marco.calviani@gmail.com>:
>
> Hi list,
>    i have a Santa Rosa (Core 2 Duo T7300) Acer AS5720 laptop, and i'm
> getting problems with the temperature of the CPU. In particular i'm
> using the coretemp module for determining the core temperature.
> Normally (using cpufreqd and the "ondemand" governor) the CPU stays at
> nearly 50C  (which i think is quite high since in windows , using Core
> Temp it gives about 30C).
> While compiling this increases up to 95-100C (after which it shuts
> down). The problem is that the fan is not spinning up at all!
> What can be the cause of this behaviour? consider that i'm using an up
> to date system with gentoo-sources-2.6.22-r8.
>
> Any help appreciated,
> Regards,
> Marco
> --
> gentoo-laptop@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


-- 
dott. ing. beso