Hi latakia, I know your frustrations - as I (and I'm sure many others) also wish that there could be some sort of 'standardisation' with HCMD2 WU's. Unfortunately though, due to the unpredicatability of the science, this isn't possible. Basically, until a WU is actually crunched, it's impossible to tell exactly as to how long it'll run for - be it 8 mins or 12 hours.

There are some checks in place that either cut the WU off at 6 hours if it hasn't reached a certain percentage (I think, 60%) and at 12 hours tops - no matter how far it's got. Then, what ever's left, is cut down into a smaller WU and processed again to these limits (at which point, the process is repeated time and time again, until it's finished). Thus, the total randomness of it all...

Another factor which the WCG techs have attempted to eliminate as much as possible, is the pairing of WU's to similar computers (which isn't perfect, but it's better than what it was). So, computer A may process the whole WU in under 6 hrs, but computer B may take longer (and hence, be stopped at 6 hours) - therefore, only the part of the WU which both computers processed can be validated. The rest, is chopped up into another WU and sent back out to be processed (hopefully) to completion in that 1 go.

What I do though to compensate this total randomness, is have my cache setting at 1 day, which in practice, pretty much covers any long running WU's from being returned later than 2 days after they were sent to my computer.