Should I be worried if cgminer reports near 3.2 gh all the time, but gpumax goes up and down (anywhere from 200 mh to 2.8 gh) as often as every 15 seconds?
Been seeing this for a couple of days.
I've been watching the shares trying to gauge any reduction. Seems a little slower and they're split across public and private.
I know this question has been answered before, but I will do it again.
Cgminer reports what it thinks is its hash speed basic on the work it is doing. The pool however, doesn't actually know what work a client is doing until it reports back the shares, which means your hashrate pool side is approximated using the shares you return. During periods of bad luck, your hashrate will appear lower and during periods of good luck, your hashrate will appear higher. Different pools have different styles of weighting the averages so you don't notice the peaks and valleys as much and the hashrate appears more constant. Obviously, all of the above ignores connection type issues. If cgminer is sending part of your hashrate to a second and/or third and/or fourth (etc), then of course each pool will only show the hashrate that they know about.
Even when considering all of the above, its possible for cgminer and the pool to not quite match. Long story short, don't go by the immediate averages, look at things a little more 'big picture' over the course of an hour or two.