If you're seeing slowdown during the night / lunch / whenever you're
away from the computer, it's probably due to one of two things. The
most likely cause is that another program is hogging processor time. Some
web browsers are known to eat processor time, especially while on pages
with animated images. However, the programs that eat the most processor
time are screensavers. OpenGL and 3-D screensavers in particular are known
to consume a LOT of processor time. For this reason, we recommend that you
either disable your screen saver, or switch to a less CPU intensive one
(a blank screen one, or one that shows a simple text message, perhaps.)
The other cause of a slowdown could be your computer entering a 'sleep
mode' where it powers most components down. To disable automatic power
down, consult your system's documentation.
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Also, check for scheduled tasks which may be running during off hours. Scandisk, Defrag, Compression Agent, and most antivirus software will schedule themselves for nighttime hours if you let them. Unless you have a critical need to run any of these daily, schedule them to happen once a week or month instead.
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distributed.net Faq-O-Matic : 
Crunchrate appears to go DOWN when I'm not at my computer!