BSOD/ Missing OS

[matthewscca]

This is my fist posting to the forum and hope you guys can help where tech support has not. I bought a new computer from Cyberpower with Vista pre-installed. Two days after receiving it the system crashed to the Blue Screen of Death with a Page Fault in a non page area error. I went into safe mode and chose a restore point and rebooted. The system came up with a message “missing OS” so I reinstalled Vista.
A week later I noticed that in the notification area I got a message that Windows was installing device drivers for my high quality sound device and both SCCI devices. Rebooted and again got the missing OS error. Reinstalled Vista.
And now every time I reboot I am getting the page fault error. I spent hours each day trying to get in touch with their 24/7 tech support but there only seems to be one person manning the desk at any given time. They had me run chkdsk (no problems detected) and had me reboot with each stick of RAM (got the same error). One tech told me it was probably my hard drive- I pointed out that I had RAID 1 setup. I ran Memtest86+ for 10.5 hours one night but it detected no problems either. They sent me a new motherboard and I spent an hour installing it, rebooted and . . . you guessed it, same error.
I sent them my dump files 5 days ago but still haven’t gotten a response so I thought I would try this forum. Any clues as to what is happening would be gratefully appreciated.
[Edited to remove the mindump files-don't want to junk up the boards!]

 

[Tmagic650]

Hello Matthew,
Welcome... Out of the five minidumps, 4 of them point to MTiCtwl.sys and 1 is NTkrpamp.exe. MTiCtwl.sys is a CD R/W port driver. NTkrpamp.exe shows system instability.

Vista has many known hardware issues. You have incompatible hardware/drivers in this Vista system. While I can't pinpoint the exact fault, I would start by deleting/removing any CD/DVD writing or playing software like Nero, Record Now or Power DVD and see if your system stablizes. Do you have all the latest Microsoft Vista updates installed?

Good Luck

 

[matthewscca]

Thanks for your response. The system came bare bones- I have no burning software installed. I do have iTunes installed. Could that possible be the problem? And yes, I have all of the VISTA updates installed. I haven't installed any drivers (that I know of) that aren't Vista compatible.

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes uninstall iTunes and see if the system stabilizes... be sure to check if iTunes is Vista compatible before you reinstall. This goes for any new software and drivers as well. Since this was a barebones system, the motherboard, CPU, memory and video/sound card all need to be Vista "ready"...

 

[matthewscca]

Maybe I am using the word barebones incorrectly. I just meant it came with the OS- no other software. I assumed that since it came with the motherboard, CPU, memory etc installed (along with Vista) that is was all "Vista" ready. Otherwise wouldn't everyone who bought the same system I did have the same problem? iTunes 7.1.1 is supposedly Vista compatible as well. I will do some research on MTiCtwl.sys and NTkrpamp.exe and see what I can find. Thanks so much for your reply.

 

[Tmagic650]

In this "newegg" part of the world, barebones means case, power supply and motherboard only. No CPU, memory or hard drive installed. You bought a "complete" system. I seriously doubt that the builders of this system really took the time to test this system very long, if at all, other that to make sure it booted. You may have a faulty motherboard or power supply. I would check to see if there is a bios update available for the motherboard first

 

[matthewscca]

I just installed a brand new mother board today since the tech folks I spoke with at Cyberpower thought it might be the mb. I rebooted and got the same error (results in the most recent minidump). The mb is a MSI P6N SLI. When I checked the MSI site they didn't have a newer BIOS. Is there a way to check the power supply without purchasing and installing a new one?

 

[Tmagic650]

What type of video are you running? On-board? SLI video card? Since you are running an SLI motherboard, I know it has an Nvidia chipset. Nvidia video drivers are known for Vista incompatibilities, as well as XP incompatibilities.

Is your power supply SLI compatible?

 

[matthewscca]

Here are my system specs:
INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6600 2.40
2 x 320GB SATA II 3GB 16MB 7200RPM HD (RAID-1 MIRRORING)
2 x 1G DDR2 PC6400
16X DVD ROM
COOLER MASTER LIQUID COOLING KIT
SONY 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE
SONY Q170A 18X DVD+-RW DUAL
MSI P6N SLI-F NFORCE 650I SLI MB
WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM 32-BIT
NZXT PF-500 2.0 PSU POWER SUPPLY
CREATIVE X-FI XtremeGamer
CREATIVE LAB 5.1 SBS580 SPEAKER
GEFORCE G8800GTS 320MB PCI-E (the driver version is 7.15.11.65)
MCE MSI THEATER 550 TV TUNER PCI

 

[Tmagic650]

Nice system matthewscca,

your RAID configuration will make troubleshooting harder at this point. I would suggest installing XP Pro on this system and see if the stability issues disappear under XP. If the system becomes stable, stay with XP until Vista matures

 

[matthewscca]

Thanks for the help and advice Tmagic. I am going to keep trying to figure this one out! I think the minidump info you gave me might give me some clues.
Thanks again.

 

[Tmagic650]

Sounds good matthewscca,
It takes people like you, who use Vista to allow us guru's to gain further knowledge on new OS's. I couldn't justify Vista on my systems. They are too important to my work, and to have issues with the OS is not an option

 

[matthewscca]

Understandable why you wouldn't want to risk it! Luckily I have another home computer, 2 at work, plus my laptop so experimentation isn't so big a deal.
Soooo...I actually tracked down the problem. I believe it has to do with my monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 244T). The MTiCtwl.sys is associated with MagicTune program which is part of the setup (but not the actual driver). Even though the version I am using is supposedly Vista compatible when I uninstalled it, the system booted perfectly!
Thanks again because it would have taken me days of trial and error to figure it out without your help.
BTW, what program do you use to analyze the minidump file?

 

[matthewscca]

For those of you interested in doing your own investigation of your minidump files, you can install Windows Debugger from the Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx. It's actually pretty easy to be a guru! Once I knew the process that was causing the error (in the first email from Tmagic in this thread) it was just a matter of Googling the results until I found a program that I recognized. It probably won't help everyone, but may prevent you have having to reinstall your OS!!

 

[Tmagic650]

"BTW, what program do you use to analyze the minidump file?"

Yes matthewscca,

Debugging Tools for Windows. You have to configure the Symbol path before the debugger can function. I place a shortcut for the debugger on my taskbar. I download the minidumps and put them in a folder named for the poster. I point the debugger to the minidump files and analyze them. It's not an exact science, but as you have found, with a little searching and some details of the crashing system, you can figure things out pretty well

 

[zeyyxe]

MTiCtwl.sys

Hey Tmagic650 & matthewscca,

I was on another website forum, getting help on a malware removal, where they had me running some scans of my system. One of the logs was flagging MTiCtwl.sys, which I googled. It gave me this string in this forum. As I read the string, I realized this is the Magic Tune Premium software that came with my Samsung Syncmaster 226BW LCD monitor. I am running Win64 XP PRO.

Error msg: "\SystemRoot\SysWow64\drivers\MTiCtwl.sys has been blocked from loading due to incompatibility with this system. Please contact your software
vendor for a compatible version of the driver."

Even though this has nothing to do with my malware problem, and your posting was a few years ago, I was still wondering if you found a fix for this that would allow running the Magic Tune program?

 

[Tmagic650]

I have a Samsung SyncMaster 245BW, and I am running Vista Home Premium... Magic Tune doesn't work for me either. Evidently Samsung doesn't care