The progress information is a combination of "known" completeness and "estimated" completeness. We know how many folds each workunit needs to complete and we know when a fold is completed. That's the "known" part.

The "estimated" part is due to the fact that the workunit is stochastic - i.e. it's not deterministic. We can't know in advance how long an individual fold will take. However, we can make an educated guess as to how long it will take and we increment the progress based on that guess. Occasionally, the guess is a bit off due to the specific nature of the workunit and the percentage will appear "stuck" for a while. We learn as the workunit progresses, so it's most noticable at the beginning of the workunit than in the middle or end.

We do this estimated progress because otherwise the percentage would only increment when a fold completes, which may take a long time. This delay in progress complete reporting would cause even more confusion than the current method. The percent complete would also jump in chunks rather than smoothly as it does now.

As long as the graphics are updating and the process is taking up CPU, it's running. We've never seen a workunit get "stuck" in either HPF or FA@H.

Having a blonde moment tonight... and can't locate an "edit post" feature. I didn't realise WCG had graphics, the graphics button thingie in BOINC appears greyed out, and I don't use the screensaver when the pc is not in use - trying to save power :)

I'm running BOINC 5.2.13 on a clone PC with Windows XP home and 3.2 Gb chip with 1Gb RAM.

Darn it if I'm missing out on seeing nice graphics - it's a girly thing :)