Total newbie, some concerns about investing in two rigs

[bitcoinaddict]

I have two machines with two cards each with both cards connected with just power and ethernet.  Dummy plugs in the vid cards allows them to show up, logmein to control them.

Plan on adding machines as I can get hardware but I don't plan on spending a ton of money.  Buying used 5770s when I can for around $60-80, they seem to be a real good bet.  I have near unlimited motherboards/psus/cpus/ram to use and electricity is free for me so all I have to pay for is the vid card, which helps pay it off much quicker.

I've already made back enough to pay for half of my hardware.

Sounds like you've got it made! lol Power is the kicker that a lot of people forget about. At least until the end of the month. 

I am kicking myself for not buying a couple more of those cheap 5830's on newegg but when I bought the one I just wasn't sure about all of this "bitcoin" stuff.

now I'm sold on it and can't find decent cheap hardware

[meighty]

I have two machines with two cards each with both cards connected with just power and ethernet.  Dummy plugs in the vid cards allows them to show up, logmein to control them.

Plan on adding machines as I can get hardware but I don't plan on spending a ton of money.  Buying used 5770s when I can for around $60-80, they seem to be a real good bet.  I have near unlimited motherboards/psus/cpus/ram to use and electricity is free for me so all I have to pay for is the vid card, which helps pay it off much quicker.

I've already made back enough to pay for half of my hardware.

Sounds like you've got it made! lol Power is the kicker that a lot of people forget about. At least until the end of the month. 

I am kicking myself for not buying a couple more of those cheap 5830's on newegg but when I bought the one I just wasn't sure about all of this "bitcoin" stuff.

now I'm sold on it and can't find decent cheap hardware

I'm keeping my eye on Craigslist and Ebay. I'm also watching the daily deal sites but nothing yet. Newegg does have the XFX HD-687A-ZNFC ATI Radeon HD 6870 for $167.99 but still a bit steep.

[bitcoinaddict]

Craigslist is where I have had the most luck.  You can usually get deals there easy and people selling on craigslist probably don't know what bitcoins are so they aren't jacking the price up

[meighty]

Craigslist is where I have had the most luck.  You can usually get deals there easy and people selling on craigslist probably don't know what bitcoins are so they aren't jacking the price up

My town is small and there isn't much on Craiglist, but I make sure to check regularly.

[Veldy]

in the long run the price for mining is going to be about 25eurocents/kwh, i think. that's the lowest price possible to maintain profitable mining in the US. with our german electricity costs, you should not invest in a mining rig unless you run a company which pays <15eurocents/kwh. i know this isn't true at the moment, but look at the graphs, they show otherwise. common sense tells you the money you get per energy won't stay at ~400%ish at which it is at the moment. people with the necessary means are going to invest as long as it's profitable, which will lead to the above - US mining only.

edit: the next difficulty increase is at 131039 (http://blockexplorer.com/q/nextretarget), we're currently on 130403 (http://blockexplorer.com/q/getblockcount). given an estimate of 6-7 minutes per block, you'll see the increase in difficulty in about 3 days. the estimated difficulty after the increase is 829651 (http://blockexplorer.com/q/estimate) which is ~50% higher than the current difficulty of 567358 (http://blockexplorer.com/q/getdifficulty). your choice, fellow german.

As for the Germans .. they are shutting down their nuclear plants [I believe this to be naive and political ... what was stupid is building plants that can't handle the environment in which they reside, known natural disaster areas such as Japan, California, etc] and will have to turn to oil, natural gas and coal [they will be loath to take the cheapest option of coal, so natural gas from Russia seems the most likely ... welcome back to the Eastern Block].  The price of electricity will increase significantly there soon.

[Veldy]

Craigslist is where I have had the most luck.  You can usually get deals there easy and people selling on craigslist probably don't know what bitcoins are so they aren't jacking the price up

Decent cards are often sold due to upgrades, so they are probably good.  However, many cards are also sold because they don't function reliably [they may pass Furmark and other tests, but still fail in ways that annoy the hell out of you]; these are often cards that have suffered thermal stress, over voltage, whatever, usually as a result of gamer overclocking attempts.  Your risk to take.  I saw a post a couple of months ago that indicated that up to 40% of the 5970s coming off of Ebay were damaged in some way [whether they remained useful for mining when treated gently I do not know].

Good luck and buy used hardware carefully.

[meighty]

Craigslist is where I have had the most luck.  You can usually get deals there easy and people selling on craigslist probably don't know what bitcoins are so they aren't jacking the price up

Decent cards are often sold due to upgrades, so they are probably good.  However, many cards are also sold because they don't function reliably [they may pass Furmark and other tests, but still fail in ways that annoy the hell out of you]; these are often cards that have suffered thermal stress, over voltage, whatever, usually as a result of gamer overclocking attempts.  Your risk to take.  I saw a post a couple of months ago that indicated that up to 40% of the 5970s coming off of Ebay were damaged in some way [whether they remained useful for mining when treated gently I do not know].

Good luck and buy used hardware carefully.

Agreed. In the past when I've bought used equipment I've usually made a judgement based on the people. It sounds worse than it is. What shape is their house in. Is their computer covered in dust. Are they just some teenage kid who OCed his stuff like crazy. Etc.

The first time bought something off Ebay (LONG time ago) I got burned. Picked up a set of 3 hard drives and 1 of the 3 worked. Lesson learned. Buy new when you can.

[hennessy]

I am running 1 pc with 2 cards with just dummy plugs. I had to use the monitor to set it up and get it installed but then unplugged it. The only issue I have now is when i connect to it via Teamviewer I can only see the first monitor show and not the 2nd. Miners seem to be running fine though.

What happens if you don't use the dummy plugs? Can't you use teamviewer then?