watchdog error, sleep and lockscreen freezing, and stable under some load tells me either the cpu isn't getting enough voltage if it's manually oc'd, or there's some bios or os powersaving thing malfunctioning.

reset bios settings, especially if you've done any overclocking. turn off any core boost or other variable core clock powersaving amd/intel specific 'features'; these are almost always unstable in my experience.

if that doesn't work, double check all power cables are properly seated in both mobo/component side and psu side if it's modular. make sure ram is seated properly. if you're on windows make sure you're on high performance mode. i can't think of much else to check without more info. good luck!

One other possibility would be some kind of malware (like one for mining bitcoins) which tries to be sneaky and activates when your computer is not busy, but a bug in it causes your PC to crash.

Google suggests perhaps a bad a Realtek WiFi driver associated with DPC watchdog BSOD / kernel panic.

To diagnose that, remove all wireless adapters and boot.

More generally, symptoms on this scale on modern operating systems mean that the crashes are in kernel mode code, which mostly means device drivers of some type.

So a decent diagnostic method is to remove pieces of hardware one at a time to see if there's one that clears up the issue.

Have you reset your bios back to defaults and made sure you're on the latest?

Sounds like something to do with the power states or clock boost.

I used to have a very similar problem also with freezers that do not occur when a game is running even in the background. I also followed dead ends such as CPU state issues and so on.

The biggest breakthrough came after several years when I took the entire SSD out of the laptop and put it into a desktop PC with entirely different hardware and booted the same Windows there. The problem still occurred!

A complete Windows reinstall fixed it for good.

The windows Event Viewer is probably something that could help you investigate, find instructions online if you have troubles.

Edit: Searching for DPC_Watchdog_Error also shows things, I don't know if you have checked.

Please provide your full system and OS config information:

• OS build
• CPU model / OC Status
• Mainboard model / UEFI version / Chipset driver
• Memory /( XMP/EXPO/OC etc) status
• GPU model / OC status / Driver
• PSU model / wattage
• ReBAR status
• Connected display model, res, refresh rate, connection method (DP/HDMI etc)
• Notable background apps

Since you've gotten a BSOD, you should have a MEMORY.DMP at C:\Windows\. Copy this to your downloads directory, Grab Windbg from the store, load the kernel DMP file to see what actually happened. This should point you to the faulting object.

We could also take a look at event viewer. I'd be interested if you have any WHEA errors listed there.

Boot in safe mode, see what happens. Sounds to me like software conflict. You might try uninstalling your video drivers with DDU.

If you can work in safe mode, get rid of a couple of drivers, run DISM and try once more.

If you can't work in safe mode, boot from usb with hiren's boot disk. If you can't work in hiren's, reset bios to optimised defaults. If you can't work in hiren's after that, it's a hardware issue.

See if just opening the task manager and leaving it open also keeps the pc from freezing. If so - that points towards a malware.

Additionally you can set up a monitoring software to get the load readouts on your phone and see if maybe something weird is going on when the pc should be idle (like 100% cpu load or disk usage). Pitikapp + hwinfo is a free combination for such setup.

Does the keyboard numlock button change state when the pc is frozen (led turning on and off when you press it)?

That's a fun problem. Could be anything, could be even CPU cores being put into efficiency states.

General debugging steps, take the system completely apart. All the way apart. Reapply thermal paste put the CPU back on. Using only a single stick of memory. Turn the computer on with just the CPU and a cooler, maybe video card if you absolutely need it, see if you can replicate the issue. Since you mentioned booting was an issue, it probably is hardware. But to rule that software, try booting with the USB stick seeing if you can replicate the issue.

Keep adding parts back onto the system until you find where the problem starts

Out of curiosity, is it the same game that keeps it from freezing, or is it any game?

Reseat your GPU port.

Soumds like a hardware issue.

What is your graphics setup? I've seen similar weirdness on laptops with hybrid graphics, where attempts to use the cpu/integrated graphics cause failures. If you have such a setup, can you test what happens after putting it into "performance" mode in the os power settings, and ideally forcing discrete gpu only as a bios level?

I face value from your description, I find it difficult to say if a program screwed up your system or if one program is conflicting wifh syatem swttings.

Apart from making sure all drivers and software is updated, uninstalling one program at a time to test for conflict, I would be inclined to erase drive and reinstall OS.

Due to playing game seems to make it run fine makes me think it's not a hardware failure, or games don't push the hardware in way to trigger what is beginning to fail.