Thermal Monitor & automatic shutdown on over temperature event

[Bob <spam@homeurl.co.uk>]

Hi, I'm trying to get my etch MythTV Backend to shutdown automatically 
if either the CPU or the Hard drives overheat.

My motherboard is an ECS K7S5A which has a it87-isa-0290 sensor chip

from sensors-detect
# Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f
# Trying family `ITE'...                                      Yes
# Found `ITE IT8705F Super IO Sensors'                        Success!
#     (address 0x290, driver `it87')
#
# Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f
# Trying family `ITE'...                                      Yes
# Found `ITE IT8705F Super IO Sensors'                        Success!
#    (address 0x290, driver `it87')

Sadly with this motherboard it's not possible to read the on die 
thermistor without breaking out the soldering irons and modifying it.

I can't find a way to set the "Overtemperature Shutdown limit" mentioned 
in the it87 documents
http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/lxr/source/Documentation/hwmon/it87
and I've tried setting temp3_over (CPU) to 40 and used burnK7 up to 53 
degreesC (actual is probably +10 ~ 15) and the system doesn't shutdown.

I've seen people recommend using sensord to shutdown on overheat but 
can't see howto, also this wouldn't do anything for the hard drives, 
similarly hddtemp seems to just do reporting with no option to shutdown.

collectd has options to monitor both but no tools that I can see to do 
anything if an error condition arises.

My reading has led me to believe that the kernel can do at least the CPU 
part of this for you, if you've got a better supported sensor chip, 
which I don't, but I can't be alone, so what do others do in this situation?

Thanks, I'm not subscribed at the moment so could you please CC me on 
any replys.