Comment 9 for bug 418620

The issue here is that what your average user is exposed to is what is in the gnome-volume-control.

If for some reason (what ever that reason is) someone or something changes the alsamixers. Users will be changing the controls in the gnome-volume-mixer and nothing will be happening to resolve their issue.

A simple way to resolve this is to reset the alsa levels on reboot. So if a person does fall into this situation they can get out by simply rebooting.