Keith, no dice. After inputting your suggestion, I set MW@H to NNT, ran through all CPU tasks (I had no other tasks from other projects, fwiw). Once I started accepting new tasks again I kept getting 4 core nbody.

Try this....set MW to no new tasks and get rid of all the n-body tasks by either aborting them or running them, then set your pc to use only 50% of the cpu's and allow more n-body tasks and see if they don't come in as 2 core tasks. Once your cache is full turn off all new n-body tasks again and change the pc to use all 4 cpu cores and your pc should happily crunch the n-body tasks with only 2 cpu cores. Yes it's a pain in the butt but it should work until you can figure out the right app_config file setting.

I have Ryzen 3900x with 64 GB ram, I just had n-body use 16 cores for 1 day 18 hrs with 10 hrs remaining. After reading through some posts, I shut down bionic, restarted it. it now says that it has been running 58 mins with 11 mins left to finish but it is waiting to run. if this keeps up I will remove this program as I am the one paying the electric bill, I feel that if you cant keep this corrected, I will not spend my money on your messed up WU's.

Just go into the Boinc Manager and click Suspend on the MilkyWay Project, that way it will stop what it's doing and not get any new tasks. You can then abort all the workunits, click update on the MilkyWay Project and they will be gone and your pc is yours again.

The n-body workunits use every cpu core you allow Boinc to use and will wait for them to be free if they aren't all free. So apparently you have allowed Boinc to use 16 cpu cores so that's what the n-body tasks are trying to do. If you want it to use less cpu cores you can use an app_config file but if you don't know how it's not exactly a plug and play thing but here's an app_config file that tells MilkyWay to only use 2 cpu cores on the n-body workunits.

<app_config>

<app>
<name>milkyway</name>
<gpu_versions>
<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
<cpu_usage>0.5</cpu_usage>
</gpu_versions>
</app>
<app_version>
<app_name>milkyway_nbody</app_name>
<max_concurrent>1</max_concurrent>
<plan_class>mt</plan_class>
<avg_ncpus>2</avg_ncpus>
<cmdline>--nthreads 2</cmdline>
</app_version>
</app_config>

Fewer cpu cores means longer tasks so you will have to play with it to find a sweet spot, but any tasks you have on your pc will be crunched using the old settings and only NEW tasks will use any changes.

<app_config>

	<app>
		<name>milkyway</name>
		<gpu_versions>
			<gpu_usage>0.5</gpu_usage>
			<cpu_usage>0.5</cpu_usage>
		</gpu_versions>
	</app>
	<app_version>
		<app_name>milkyway_nbody</app_name>
			<plan_class>mt</plan_class>
			<cmdline>--nthreads 2</cmdline>
	</app_version>
</app_config>

Must I disable other GPU options like NVDIA and ATI one ?

<core_client_version>7.14.2</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<stderr_txt>
<search_application> milkyway_separation 1.46 Windows x86_64 double </search_application>
Reading preferences ended prematurely
Error loading Lua script 'astronomy_parameters.txt': [string "number_parameters: 4..."]:1: '<name>' expected near '4' 
Switching to Parameter File 'astronomy_parameters.txt'
<number_WUs> 4 </number_WUs>
<number_params_per_WU> 26 </number_params_per_WU>
Using SSE4.1 path
Integral 0 time = 1012.482696 s
Integral 1 time = 72.815637 s
Running likelihood with 31964 stars
Likelihood time = 0.742747 s
Non-finite result:  setting likelihood to -999
<background_integral> 0.000037570759755 </background_integral>
<stream_integral>  99.770597784118664  -0.000000000000002  2.975633165946907  31.903999743820332 </stream_integral>
<background_likelihood> -3.304855300694308 </background_likelihood>
<stream_only_likelihood>  -3.850858455061610  -1.#IND00000000000  -33.432437063013211  -3.345848296216324 </stream_only_likelihood>
<search_likelihood> -999.000000000000000 </search_likelihood>
Using SSE4.1 path
Integral 0 time = 962.681409 s
Integral 1 time = 66.608038 s
Running likelihood with 31964 stars
Likelihood time = 0.714490 s
Non-finite result:  setting likelihood to -999
<background_integral1> 0.000056193474869 </background_integral1>
<stream_integral1>  112.923813599446660  -0.000000000000000  6.056076443722354  34.858924693631693 </stream_integral1>
<background_likelihood1> -3.277210709097926 </background_likelihood1>
<stream_only_likelihood1>  -3.458606239195324  -1.#IND00000000000  -90.323903172119387  -3.362009522740810 </stream_only_likelihood1>
<search_likelihood1> -999.000000000000000 </search_likelihood1>
Using SSE4.1 path
Integral 0 time = 988.222037 s
Integral 1 time = 72.907524 s
Running likelihood with 31964 stars
Likelihood time = 0.777539 s
<background_integral2> 0.000055474761194 </background_integral2>
<stream_integral2>  138.240648517785560  0.000000000000000  3.273614114441112  32.353426341780249 </stream_integral2>
<background_likelihood2> -3.220026502247338 </background_likelihood2>
<stream_only_likelihood2>  -3.603610892548526  -225.946861528629880  -69.172319179365019  -3.469036352446314 </stream_only_likelihood2>
<search_likelihood2> -2.680819329206185 </search_likelihood2>
Using SSE4.1 path
Integral 0 time = 929.860979 s
Integral 1 time = 72.370386 s
Running likelihood with 31964 stars
Likelihood time = 0.809307 s
<background_integral3> 0.000040761402645 </background_integral3>
<stream_integral3>  131.392854802297900  0.000000000000000  5.855449497825772  36.142942293270110 </stream_integral3>
<background_likelihood3> -3.259187575862191 </background_likelihood3>
<stream_only_likelihood3>  -3.716972425906632  -227.654181625117020  -114.306934247414770  -3.267494168057085 </stream_only_likelihood3>
<search_likelihood3> -2.688803829698713 </search_likelihood3>
04:42:33 (13296): called boinc_finish(0)

</stderr_txt>
]]>

Error loading Lua script 'astronomy_parameters.txt': [string "number_parameters: 4..."]:1: '<name>' expected near '4' 

<cc_config>
      <log_flags>
          <schedu_op_debug>1</schedu_op_debug>
          <work_fetch_debug>1</work_fetch_debug>
     </log_flags>
</cc_config>