My CPU is a fairly old i5 and probably needs a replacement of the thermal paste, so I wanted to run Rosetta for a 2-4 hours a day so I don't abuse it too much. However the first task I got says 1 day 5 hours left. (edit: I see now I have four tasks, ETA of each ranging from 21-28 hours) What did I set wrong? Here are my settings:

COMPUTING PREFERENCES

Suspend when computer is on battery YES
Suspend when computer is in use NO
Suspend GPU computing when computer is in use YES
'In use' means mouse/keyboard input in last 3 minutes
Suspend when no mouse/keyboard input in last --- minutes
Suspend when non-BOINC CPU usage is above --- %
Compute only between ---

Store at least 0.1 days of work
Store up to an additional 0.1 days of work
Switch between tasks every 60 minutes
Request tasks to checkpoint at most every 60 seconds

Use no more than 2 GB
Leave at least 1 GB free
Use no more than 90 % of total

When computer is in use, use at most 40 %
When computer is not in use, use at most 70 %
Leave non-GPU tasks in memory while suspended NO
Page/swap file: use at most 1 %

Network - nothing limited

ROSETTA@HOME PREFERENCES

Resource share 100
Use CPU YES
Is it OK for Rosetta@home and your team (if any) to email you? YES
Should Rosetta@home show your computers on its web site? NO
Default computer location ---
Percentage of CPU time used for graphics not selected
Number of frames per second for graphics not selected
Target CPU run time 2 hours
Graphics background color blue

What did I set wrong?

The default Target time is 8 hours, and it appears you have changed that, but the BOINC Manager needs to contact the servers to update that information- which it will have done in order to get the additional Tasks. So by now it should be set for a 2 hour CPU Target Runtime.

However while that is the Target CPU runtime, if a Task needs to run longer in order to complete enough work so it has something it can actually return, it can run for up to an additional 10 hours. However in most cases it should be able to return work in around 2 hours or so.
Also, if your system is busy doing other things while trying to process work, then the Run Time (the time it actually takes to process the Task) can be much longer than the CPU time (the time it actually pends doing the processing); in extreme cases 3 or 4 times longer. But with your system hidden it's impossible to tell if that is at play here.
If using Windows bringing up Task Manager (or better yet using Process Explorer) should let you see what processes are using your CPU. Anything other than rosetta_4.20_windows_x86_64.exe will result in Run times being much longer than the CPU time.

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Grant
Darwin NT

You didn’t mention how you have configured your CPU usage limits; setting Use at most N % of CPU time less than 100 will certainly increase the wall time required to achieve the target CPU run time.

Rosetta tasks need several hundred megabytes of RAM each; it’s possible that the Memory settings are causing BOINC to stop tasks running (especially if the machine is also being used for other work).

If you’re willing to unhide your computer details (check the option Should Rosetta@home show your computers on its web site? in project preferences), it’ll be easier for us to help.

Hello again, looks like the estimated time was wrong. All the tasks completed within 4-5 hours of starting. It seems it takes them a long time to get to the first 10% or so, but after that progress starts speeding up. ETA was 8h + until the last 10% though. I'm guessing it's some kind of a worst case estimate, not the average time to finish...