P2Pool Consistency Help.

[Erasmuz]

I was wondering if there is something that can be done to get a more consistent hash rate on P2pools (I would insert images to show exactly what I mean, but it seems as though I can't upload images to the forum so hopefully my description will be sufficient).

When looking at the graphs over a 24 hour period my hash rate oscillates +/- quite a bit.  When looking at my graph over the period of an hour there are times all over the place where it reports I have 0 hashes/sec. 

From looking at other peoples graphs it looks like there are a lot of people in the same boat, but there are always several people who get nice consistent graphs which never show 0 hashes/sec.  I was wondering what causes this, and if there is a way to keep a consistent reading for my hashes?

I have double checked that my GPU's are stable. I also have multiple machines going so I would think one would always report some hashes and not give me a total of 0.  I've also wondered if this isn't a latency issue with the pools, or the network?

Any help, info, or answers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[Foxpup]

p2pool has a much higher share difficulty than other pools, meaning you'll find fewer shares, but get paid more for each share, so it balances out. But since you're finding fewer shares, you're more likely to experience long periods in which you don't find any shares at all, and p2pool will display your hashrate as 0, even though you're still mining normally, and you won't get paid during these periods. But there will also be periods in which you find more shares than usual, and since each share is worth more, you will be paid much more than usual, so that makes up for it.

TL;DR: Higher share difficulty = higher variance.