Hi plawton:
There are several things to consider before thinking that something is not running smoothly. Since this is your first posting (welcome to the forums) I'll assume you are not familiar with our lingo.

You didn't mention which science app, or apps, you have been running or how many computers you have crunching those 1000 daily work units (WUs). Not all the projects have WUs that take the same amount of processing time each. They are definately not the same between projects. Discovering Deugue Drugs Together Phase 2 (DDDT2) is an example of a project that has extreme variations in processing time between different WUs on the same computer; some would take more than 24 hours while others would be completed in less than an hour. Nutritious Rice for the World WUs were designed to run for exactly 7 hours. Check the Results Status page to see what projects you have been processing recently.

Another way you might see less WUs tally up is that the servers only credit you for completed WUs when they have been validated. Depending on the number of copies that have been sent out and the number of valid replies required. The WUs I am crunching now for Help Fight Childhood Cancer (HFCC) have only 1 copy intitially sent out and only need one valid reply. They are validated immediately and are credited when the next stats script runs on the server. Some science apps send out 20 copies and need many more valid replies (like 15) before validating. If you have a fast computer you may have to wait days for the other WUs to be completed by other crunchers (your wingmen). Sometimes someone does not report back in the alotted time and replacement WUs are sent out which then you have to wait even longer.

None of this explains why you have seen a sudden change. Since I cannot see your specific details (only this page ) I can only give you some ideas of things to look at. Daily WUs are only one paramter to look at. If you are running 24x7 and you have been gaining the same amount of CPU time per day, then you are probably OK.

Cheers

Hi and welcome plawton!
From looking at your statistics here or in BOINCstats what you call work unit is obviously what we call WCG points.
In our terminology work units are the tasks, or jobs which are distributed to your client for being computed and then returned to the servers for validation. Once validated these jobs are counted as results in WCG statistics.

As Sekerob said the answer to your question is probably in your Results Status page.
Another possibility would be that your client has received a very long job to compute (e.g. for project DDDT2), and during that time you are not returning as many tasks as usual and thus there is less to validate until you complete and return this long job.

Cheers. Jean.

Thanks, folks, I'll work on 'crunching' what you've shared, and search for ... those things you've mentioned.

Thanks!