Heyyo,
Definately laptops on the lap is bad as our body generates heat wich will heat up the laptop. Same with your palms, try to lift them up while using the keyboard, especially if there's a running component under where you rest your hand like a cd rom drive. or HD. since you're not OCing that can't be a problem..
Somehow, as skinny as toshiba's are, they seem to be able to keep cool... the skinny-ness makes me think really poor air circulation, but it doesn't seem to affect it much at all... so yeah, if you have a good laptop make then obviously things such as tems should always be good.. older laptops most likely have poorer designs than newer ones, so yeah, you might have a really bad layout which ain't helping the temps. as someone mentioned earlier, definatley clean out any dust. Just open up the laptop and use an air can. Blowing with your mouth also works, but careful that no spit flies out, that can be bad.