Perfectly normal (and very productive) if you have a dual-core processor?

Thanks for the quick responses. Obviously I am new to this.

Yes, I am using a dual-core PC.

Hello Blarrrg,
Good idea! The Pentium 4 will run 2 threads simultaneously unless you specify only 1 thread. 2 work units take twice as much memory but run only slightly faster than a single thread. Go to My Grid - Device Manager and click on your device profile. This will bring up the device preferences page. By default, it is set to run up to 4 threads per processor. Set it to run only 1 thread per processor, then SAVE the new profile. After your BOINC client downloads the new profile, it will only run one work unit at a time. This is better than 2 unless you have lots of RAM and do not use your computer much.

Lawrence

One process runs in the real core. The other is virtual and uses the small gaps. The process manager will show each using 50% i suppose, but in reality the 2 processes are getting half and a few percentage points more from the little gaps that HT is utilizing, so in the end your 2 jobs finish in near twice the wall-clock time versus. Depending on RAM it could even take longer than twice on the wallclock because of e.g. swapping.

Whilst it may work for the individual case, the recommendation is to just allow 1 CPU in the profile *for HT* CPU's. If you try, you will discover that a job finishes in half the wallclock time.

Added Rumour has it that Intel is going to re-introduce HT in their dual cores.... they dropped it apparently due design complications building the original duo's.