Just this afternoon my laptop speakers have begun to act very odd. They still work, but the sound is a poor, garbled quality, much like a speaker with waay to much bass and unclear definition. I have the same problem when i plug in my headphones, which play in my ipod just fine.

I cannot stress enough how suddenly it changed. I was listening to music just fine this morning and all of the sudden it had troubel this afternoon.

My laptop is a 2.5 year old Dell Inspiron 8600. I've checked all of the audio properties and did the audio test, but am not sure how else to proceed troubleshooting.

Thanks to whoever can help!