On climateprediction.net I have 2 tasks that were due 2/20/11 and still have 300+ hours to go each. Will that data still be useful? If I abort as the BOINC manager suggests will the 600+ hours already done be sent and used, or simply deleted? I care only about the data, not credits etc. Thanks for any help/advice.

The due dates are a BOINC feature that CPDN ignores, though it will affect the scheduling of tasks if you are running more than one project. CPDN accepts any data submitted after the due date and credits remain intact.

However, the two tasks are from the HADSM3 family, which do sometimes suffer from a slowdown that does render subsequent data worthless. You should check the graphics display for each of the models: if the temperature display is blue for a couple of timesteps then the model is an 'iceworld' and should be aborted. The 'u59g' model has already completed on another Windows/Intel computer, so yours should finish too. For some reason I can't get to the Web page for the other model, 'u49s', so it would be a good idea to check whether that is a possible iceworld - these slab models should take a matter of weeks rather than a year.

[Edit: Actually the second one is fine too. They're probably running slowly because there are two models running hyperthreaded on one Pentium 4.]