I have been using this software for a couple of months. One task finished after something like 100 processor hours, while another one died with “computation error" after 95 hours. When both of them were finished, boinc downloaded two new tasks. One of these has failed with “computational error" after just over 30 hours. So, already 50% of the tasks have died in this way.

I searched the forums for “computation error" and there were no hits at all. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that I am the only person in the world encountering this problem. It is a tremendous waste of resources to devote processor time to tasks that are likely to fail. Does anyone have any advice?

My machine is an Apple iMac, under a one-year-old, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Due with 4 GB of RAM.

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Which forum did you search through? This one?
As you'd have to search through the Project forum.

BOINC is only the managing program, it doesn't do any calculations.
That's a task of the project science application. And as such, any errors your computer encounters in that project need to be checked at the project web-site.

When you check the outcome of the tasks on the project web site and you see they are "computation error", click the Task ID link. That'll show you the stderr.txt output which usually has a lot more information. That's also helpful for the people helping you, as else trying to fix your computation error is quite difficult. It could be anything really, from the air your computer uses to cool itself, to the ground it stands on.

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