Barton 2600, will "painting" unlock it?

I used to be a proud owner of 1800 jiuhb oc @ 182X12 until I tried to push it to hard this week and blew both the chip and the mobo (ecs k7vta3). The bottom of the chip actually warped because of the voltage/heat.
I bought a $94 frys special of ecs k7vta3 v.8 and boxed barton 2600. I have heard that I cannot unlock the multi on this. Does it unlock with a wire mod? Can I "paint" it (connect the bridges)? I got the chip to 180X11.5 with stock vcore and stock cooling but I want it to faster. My 1800 blew this away in sandra tests. HELP

If the 2600 is post week 43, then there is absolutely no way to unlock it.

Well they CAN be unlocked but only in software, after booting into the OS (you use CPUMSR to madify the multiplier on-the-fly after you do the mobile mod). However, that will only work on VIA, SiS and AMD chipsets, not on nForce/nForce2.

Hmm, I'm not familiar with the ECS K7VTA3 - isn't that a KT266 board? How did you get to 180 MHz (and intend to go higher)?

I have a locked barton 2600 also and Ive got it to 190 X 11.5 With stock heatsink fan but have a tornado on my case blowing right on it. I also changed the voltage to 1.7 (.5 higer). My temps at start up are 38-39 and my temps under load are 41-43. Windows couldnt run more stable either so Im happy but am intending on buying a thermalright 900 and overclocking it more.

Depending on the revision, it's a 266MHz or a 333MHz, set by jumpers on the board. The FSB can be tweaked within the BIOS, but only within a certain range.