Hi snoekie!
I think the confusion might come from your understanding of processors with hyperthreading. Before starting grid computing I was thinking like you that a HT processor was some kind of dual processor. But after reading explanations by experts on various fora I have realized my mistake: a P4 HT (my case) is a true single core processor with two threads to feed instructions in the processor. That makes it more efficient when switching between tasks, but there is still only one core to do the job. Therefore, in an "idle" machine, if you run two concurrent WUs on a HT processor each one receives half the computing power and lasts twice longer than if it were alone.

In fact, in such a machine, the most efficient is to set the number of processors in BOINC to 1, although it would also run fine with 2 as you could notice, if you forget about estimating when a task will finish.

Edit: I forgot to say that the confusion is largely helped by Windows' taskmanager that incorrectly shows 50% when you have only one job running, while the HT processor is actually crunching at 100% (assuming BOINC is throttled at 100%).

Anybody, please don't hesitate to correct me if I have misunderstood something.

Cheers. Jean.

Sekerob, I am that ignorant that I don't know where to look for that item.

Found, and it is this

1
0
0
0
0
10.000000
1.000000
50.000000

Couldn't find the wording you listed

After thinking about it, I think I am beginning to understand.

It would explain some of the delay, I have the processor useage set at 80%, but am puzzled as to why this would take up nearly 3 times the actual time.

Thanks for the pointers