Thanks. I'm not sure the cgminer.congf file is in the right place (program files(86)\gridcoin folder) and maybe wasn't having any effect. I have already got the intensity at 13 despite what the conf file says in my earlier post (which is why I think the cgminer.conf is doing nothing).

Have we reached the difficulty point where it is better to switch to GPU pool mining? And I assume that because I have to find a block to start participating in the pool (once pool mining=true is in gridcoin.conf) then I could still have a long wait?

Nthuse