ASUS Zenbook UX303LA audio jack problem

I've been having some problems with the 3.5mm audio jack on my laptop as of a week ago (laptop was bought new 2 months ago). The problem manifested gradually but essentially this is my situation right now:

Audio jack empty: laptop thinks there's something plugged in and tries to play sound through phantom headphones/external speakers.

Headphones/external speakers plugged into audio jack: laptop thinks I've unplugged everything from the jack and plays sound through its native onboard speakers.

This means in order to hear any sound from the laptop's native speakers I have to insert something into the jack. Headphones/speakers are completely unusable since the laptop thinks I've unplugged them from the port when I actually plug them in.

I've tried several troubleshooting methods such as rolling back my machine to before the problem started and uninstalling/reinstalling the audio drivers (conexant HD audio). My current workaround is uninstalling the conexant drivers and using the default Windows driver that separates headphones and speakers into two separate playback devices. I've disabled the headphones device which forces sound to come through the speakers (if I enable it though the laptop defaults back to thinking there are headphones plugged in when there aren't).

I've also googled around and it appears others have had a similar problem with other laptop brands such as HP (with no real solutions). I'm not sure if this is a software or hardware problem or a combination of both. I'm running Windows 8.1 if it matters. Anyone have any ideas/experience?

 

Have you contacted Asus about this? I've never seen this on this model. I would imagine it's a software issue so long as you can get audio output through both the jack and the speakers, but it's strange indeed.

 

There may have been a manufacturing weakness in the jack itself meaning the contacts are not mating properly (does it feel loose?) But yes I would contact Asus.