memtest86 freeze as a diagnostic symprom?

[David (PassMark)]

but I'm skeptical that [Wifi] networking hardware is the root cause.

Indeed. Maybe just connect up an Ethernet cable for a while. (or a USB to Ethernet converter) and disable Wifi in BIOS.

I thought it might be a good idea to check here to see if there is some known quirk running memtest86 in that mode

We aren't aware of any bug in the current release that would cause a freeze.

Does this machine have soldered RAM or can it be replaced?

[iam2sam]

Hello. First, I want to both thank and congratulate the memtest86 team on producing a product that has performed so well over so many years. I used it frequently on a professional basis for a very long time, and I have been retired 10 years. Many technical products don't even last the length of my retirement! Anyway...

I am troubleshooting my wife's Dell Latitude E5470 with an Intel quad core i5-6300u CPU. It has suddenly developed a very strange problem of frequently freezing during boot sequence just before or during user log on. Believe it or not (I'm having some difficulty in that regard myself) the problem is consistently worse away from the WIFI signal source (Arris TG4492 Router/Gateway from Xfinity) than close by, even though the signal strength at the house locations where it freezes more often is plenty strong as shown by other devices. That seems to suggest a E5470 WIFI hardware issue (router has been cycled, drivers have been reloaded/repaired, and software settings have been changed around multiple times to no avail), but I'm skeptical that networking hardware is the root cause.

Inconsistent symptoms always have made me question DRAM integrity. I ran the onboard Windows (7) memory diags, and when it froze during that exercise, I downloaded the latest memtest86 and ran that at default settings, which it passed. I then tried to run it again with the option to cycle through the CPU cores sequentially (all other settings remained at default), and it froze at 16% Pass; 8% test. I thought it might be a good idea to check here to see if there is some known quirk running memtest86 in that mode; some known quirk in this specific hardware architecture that could cause that test to freeze; or whether someone more current in this kind of troubleshooting than I am at this point might see that as a possible clue as to the original problem. Thanks in advance for any pointers or advice provided.

-SAM