random system lockups under light workloads

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ahoyyyy!

got an issue with my self-built pc as per the title.

the computer is fine when playing games for hours - but is unstable when performing simple tasks like using windows explorer, web browsing and editing photos in lightroom classic.

under these conditions the system will lockup - eventually the screen goes black and it either cold boots or very occassionally recovers to desktop and then i have an amd crash defender message about disabling the gpu or placing it into safe mode.

whilst gaming is absolutely cool, i do get some intermittent issue with the keyboard becoming unresponsive but the mouse is still fine and the game is not affected.
this keyboard unresponsiveness lasts between a few seconds and up to maybe 10 seconds.

ooo, also sometimes the system fails to wake from sleep. it looks like it's going to wake then it just hangs on a black screen.

i've been trying to work this out myself, reading around, and stupidly bought into the idea it was the motherboard. so i replaced the motherboard and i'm still in the same boat.
now i need to work this out before parting with any other cash!

stuff i've gone through so far and tried to rule out:

2 different motherboards.
2 fresh installs of windows.
multiple runs of memtest with no errors reported.
checked i have separate power cables powering the gfx (i read this might be a thing)
a small undervolt of the gpu (from 1100 to 1050) and turning off gpu accleration in lightroom - no difference.

so based upon these test/checks it feels like it either comes down to the gpu or the psu.

these are my specs - mem is running at stock speed and no expo:

AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six Core 5.10GHz
ASUS ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming WiFi
Corsair Vengeance EXPO 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz
Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse 20GB GDDR6
WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4
Corsair SF-L Series SF850L Fully Modular 80 Plus Gold Low-Noise SFX-L

other reading i've done is strongly implying it's the gpu and its inability to deal with sudden power state transitions.
but i honestly have no idea - and i have no other gpu to switch out and test.

has anyone got any clues or similar experiences?
any advice deeply appreciated.
 
other reading i've done is strongly implying it's the gpu and its inability to deal with sudden power state transitions.
but i honestly have no idea - and i have no other gpu to switch out and test.
You could try testing that. (in the background) E.g. leave it playing a YouTube video or a low-demand browser game.

I'm not sure if you can set a minimum power/clock state in the driver.
 
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