Buildapc

Headphone out isn’t identical to line out, but is generally close enough to be used for the purpose. This should be working with a minor degradation in sound quality.

First thing is first: have you plugged headphones into your laptop to make sure the headphone out jack is working? Assuming you have done that…

I suspect you are dealing with the laptop jack being a “headset” jack and not specifically a “headphone” jack. Headphone jacks are “TRS” headset jacks are “TRRS”. See the picture at the top of this.

On the PC side, the line in jack is probably just TRS… if it’s a line in. Is it line in or microphone in? A mic in jack could just be a TS jack.

Are you using a TRS to TRS cable to hook this up? Or a TRRS to TRRS? Or a TRRS to TRS? I’m guessing you tried the first - TRS to TRS. If that’s the case, I would give a TRRS to TRS cable a try. TRRS out of laptop, TRS into desktop.

Edit: actually, assuming you are using a TRS to TRS cable, I’d get this adapter: https://a.co/d/aSMseh4 Adapter plugs into the laptop headset jack, then your TRS cable goes from the headphone jack on the adapter to the Pc. Mic jack stays empty.

I think this is more likely to work than a random TRRS to TRS cable, as those cables can come in a variety internal wirings, so a random cable may not be dropping the mic wire (like you want) and instead be dropping one or both headphone wires.

There's software that can do this for you as well. I pass both input and output over the network with no noticeable latency (via ehernet).

If you're using Linux and pipe wire, this is supported out of the box:

pactl load-module module-native-protocol-tcp port=4656 listen=IPADDRESS

pactl load-module module-tunnel-sink server=IPADDRESS tcp::4656

They're other methods on different OS's, this is just what I use.

Generally yeah you should pair line-level i/o together: line out to line in.

Can you share audio with the "static"? That might help us figure out the cause. Sometimes audio hardware is poorly shielded, so ssd/CPU/GPU activity generates noise on the audio lines. I've experienced that with many laptops over the years. Does the static get worse if you're actively using the computer and it's under load? Which computer or both? Do you hear it with headphones or speakers connected with the volume set high?

It's a headphone jack so also make sure you have the output volume set pretty high so that the gain on the input side can be lower.

Why are you doing this? If you're capturing audio to record, and the static is consistent, you might just be able to filter it out.

I've had the same issue trying to run audio from my Nintendo switch to my PC. I'd love to hear an answer if anyone else has one

Could be a ground loop. Does it change depending on if the laptop is plugged in or literally ONLY has the aux cable plugged into it (on battery).

You're converting to analog and back, each time generating a bunch of noise (how much depends on the converters). The ideal solution is to cut out the analog signal here.

The only digital way of transferring audio streams I know of are TOSLINK (no idea whether that can work between computers) and custom protocols over standard ip like @usrtrv@lemmy.ml mentioned.

Are they plugged into the same power strip/outlet?

To make sure they share a common ground.