Do the running tasks appear to be clocking up progress properly? If not, have you got "Keep applications in memory" set for when things suspend? If applications get swapped out if suspended (e.g. because of your "when computer in use" settings) then they'll restart at the last checkpoint...

If that's not the issue, a little insight into what your system is (O/S, CPU version, BOINC client version?) might help, but here are some things that could be relevant whatever those details might be.

• Have you altered the "Use ??? % of CPU time" to be below 100 in order to reduce temperature and/or fan noise?
  
• What CPU -- if you have a modern CPU with both performance and efficiency cores it might have some odd effects;
  
• How many of the "CPUs" are you asking it to use?
  

The problem might be because the run time estimates are based on an assumption that running tasks get 100% of CPU time whilst running -- those 1.45 hour estimates are in the same area as those for a couple of my older Intel systems, and I can't think offhand of any reasonably modern system that might need as long as 7 hours if there isn't a configuration or hardware issue. The first point above can have a very big influence here, especially if that is set below 50%!

The other points might have some bearing as well, because although it may appear to be running things all the time, if you have a large number of tasks running at the same time it will tend to mean that each clock cycle sees less actual computing because of either floating point delays or higher volumes of memory accesses that can't be satisfied from cache.

I don't know whether the above is of any help, but...

Cheers - Al.

[Edited to add the reference to keeping applications in memory!]

Is an additional cache set up at the bottom of the Computing Preferences menu? If so, eliminate it.

BOINC will adjust the estimated time to the actual after multiple WU are processed, and use that number for fetching work in the future.

Thank you.
The tasks appear to be clocking fine. I have checked the keep applications in memory (btw, they are not swapped out, they run continuously)

OS: Win11,
Boinc client: Latest
CPUs: 16 cores, 3056 floating point MIPS, 17479 integer MIPS
11th Gen Intel core i7 11800H @ 2.3GHz
Use % is set to 100%, but is actually 8%. Clockspeed is reduced to 1 GHz (and my laptop is getting warm)

Garrulus glandarius,

In reverse order (and drifting off the original topic, I fear)...

The initial estimates of time are based on the [absolutely useless] BOINC benchmarks and it can take quite a while for the system to work out what is right. If that's on a P-core, E-core system that could also confuse things!

Two of my (all-Linux) fleet members are mini-PCs; one is an Asus 5600H which I frequency cap at 3.6GHz and the other a MinisForum 7840HS which I cap at 4.1GHz. I also moderate the work mix (never allow more than 75% of CPU threads to be used by BOINC) and I divvy up the possible use of those threads by application; both systems have very respectable turnaround times, even when under a full workload -- on a good day the 5600H returns up to 120 MCM1 tasks a day (limited to 5 threads) and the 7840HS returns over 200 (limited to 8 threads) whilst only drawing about 25% more power. Nice little systems, and there's definitely a performance-per-watt improvement with the latest Zen architecture!

Cheers - Al.