BOINC, read all about it...just check out the seti link that Dizney_Nut posted, it will give you all, and I mean all the details.
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One thing you have to be sure is done when you minimize Seti is that it is still running (that why I never minimized it when I first started).
Under Settings, Preferences, be sure you have
"Data analysis always runs" selected, otherwise it will only run as a screen saver or when it is open. If you run a good 3D game, it will pretty much stall Seti out (which is a good thing for your gaming, but a bad thing for your stats), so you might want to kill it (right click on icon and exit) while you are playing to keep your stats high