also, can someone explain why my hash rate listed at my pool isnt what's listed in my cgminer status?
Interesting - what pool? Most take some time to settle down (especially slush), but that's probably not what you're asking about. The other thing is stales - for some reason I have noticed that some pools have higher reject and stale rates than others. FWIW, I'm using btcguild for my btc mining and coinex switchpool for my alts and both show comparable to my cgminer.