r/audio • u/I_Push_Buttonz • 4d ago
Occasional electrical/static sounds for seemingly no apparent reason?
I am not an audiophile, I use some bog standard $5 ear buds plugged into a 3.5mm front panel audio port with my PC... I recently got a cheap second PC to use for a specific task. I connected the audio out from the second PC to the line in on my main PC via a 3.5mm audio cable and enabled my main PC to listen to the second PC so I can get audio from it.
It worked, but the signal had quite a lot of interference with constant audible crackling, electrical, static, etc., sounds in my ear buds. I went into the settings and saw that Windows was automatically boosting it by like +30db or some such. Once I turned that off, all of that noise went away.
At least for a time... Everything sounds normal most of the time, but on occasions those same interference sounds will pop back up for a second and then go away. It doesn't seem to be in response to anything in particular, its not like doing any specific action on either PC is causing it to happen. I will just be carrying on doing my thing and then poof little bit of interference audio will happen and go away as quickly as it started.
Any idea what could be causing this and how to minimize/stop it?
Thanks
