Barton Stepping Question

I recently, about a week and a half ago,bought a 2500 off of newegg OEM. The stepping i got was AQUCA, and thus far I've only been able to get it to 2.15 GHZ no matter what the multiplier or FSB, though i've only pushed the voltage 1.9V. I was wondering if this just seems to lower overclocking cpu, and if so what retailers allow you to request steppings, cause i may just sell this one and buy another?

It should get to 2.2 at least, most I've seen so far have gone to 2.3 including the one I have. The highest I had stable was a little over 2.4 but that was on air and without going over 1.9v VCore.

Don't take my word for it though. Also have you tried to turn the VCore and Chipset voltages up?

That speed seems suprisingly low for a 2500+ Barton.

Most seem to be able to hit 2.2ghz or higher without problems, and with little added voltage (most do not need more than 1.85V or so), even with the stepping you have.

I bought Retail from Newegg and I recieved the stepping listed in my signature. Steppings however, do not seem to make much difference in the Bartons. Seems you just had bad luck in the overclocking lottery (don't worry- it happens to us all one time or another).

What board are you running? If it's not a decent Nforce2 board, I would seriously consider upgrading to one, as KT400's and older boards do not overclock nearly as well, even though the problem may seem to be the CPU.

If all else fails, stick that sucker up on Ebay, or just plain sell it, and try your luck again. Remember with overclocking, picking a chip is mostly luck, you need not return a chip (RMA) because it won't overclock like you want it to.

Many people are practicing this, and believe it or not, it drives cost up for all of us.

Good luck!

Actually upon reading a few other posts in this forum, i saw that some people were having to push voltages as high as 2.0. So i tried this and now i can get to 2.33 @ 2.12 VCORE. I have an Abit NF7-s V2.0 motherboard, which seems to undervolt(been reported by alot of people in the abit forum), motheboard monitor reports 2.05 VCORE. Temp maxes out at around 58C underload, though again thats debateable because the again the NF7 has issues with temperature reporting(bios 1.2 reports at 58, 1.4 is generally around 10 degreees lower, so not really sure whats up)Also i have the chipset voltage up to 1.7. hehe unfortunate part is this success has kinda motivated me to sell the chip more, cause if i can push this one to 2.3, i'm wondering if i got a better overclocker if i could reach 2.5, now that'd be sweet.

It's very rare with the Athlon chips that an increase above 1.9V or so will provide additional overclocking benefit (hence why I stated *most* do not require upwards of 1.85V). That is from experience, and also hours upon hours spend reading and posting on this forum.

It is also HIGHLY unlikely that anybody with air cooling can sustain those kinds of voltages. My temp peaks upwards of 60C, I'd hate to imagine what an 0.27V increase would do to my temps.

If you have adequate cooling, and can reach voltages such as you stated, and it provides a substantial overclock worth the additional cooling-- then you're lucky and by all means go for it. Just don't expect all CPU's to perform in the same manner. Especially the 1700+ DLT3C, and the Barton processors.