SOLVED? Sound Output on Laptop From Both Speakers AND Headphones

PROBLEM - BOTH SPEAKERS AND HEADPHONES PLAYING

I had a strange thing happen to me today. Almost as if taken from a zombie movie.

Laptop speakers came alive all by themselves!



[UPDATE: This now appears as an overture into Vista No Sound problem, sound drivers going bad, and having to reinstall them later]

I inserted a set of headphones in my Acer Aspire laptop front panel. I was listening to a webcast and I didn't want to disturb my friend. Shortly thereafter my friend alerted me however that my speakers are playing loud!

Crazy- it was hard to believe. Impossible to know by myself because the headsets are all I heard!

Normally I'd expect that when inserting the headphones jack the speakers would be muted. Not this time. Tried plugging and unplugging the headset. Regardless, speakers keep on playin'!

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

What would you do to fix this? Well I tried a few things. Plug/unplug the headphone jack failed. Went into my Device Manager, under Sound, disabled my Realtek sound card. That cut off the sound completely. Turned it back on, still, both headphones and speaker keep on playin'!

FINAL SOLUTION?

Finally, decided to reboot the Vista laptop. That solved the problem and everything works as usual.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Till next time! What do YOU think was going on? What would you do? Please comment if you have a clue!

OTHER PEOPLE WHO COULD BE HELPED BY THIS

This guy with an Asus could be helped, possiby.
These guys at Tom''s Hardware think this is normal behavior. Well not for my laptop!
Some folks actually prefer to have sound from both speakers and headset simultaneously(Win 7)!