Over time you will get more "peer 2 peer" connections and eventually download the entire 130000+ blocks

When mining Brand does not matter for mining only the lowest price for the specific model
unless you will be overclocking and in that case you might want to stick with the ASUS brand

The guys over at BitClockers have a great resource for mining help
They got me up and running with my 2Giga hash rig when it was giving me a lot of problems I didnt understand.
lots of useful guides available here if you need

I have been mining for a few weeks now at 2Ghash

I just joined up with my 3.6Ghash/s loving it here, good crew
bet part is the late night IRC chats