I'm not sure if this is working properly or not...but I ran into this last night. Before I went to bed at around 2:30 AM, I started research at the woodworking station on a shield. It said it would take 6 hours. I started it, it started counting down. I woke up at 10:30 AM, logged on to check, and it said 4 hours remaining.
Does it not continue to count down at full speed while you're logged off?