Cisco 2960

Posted by: Billy Rubin on 26 November 2018

Grateful for help! 8-port Cisco 2960 switch bought from eBay. Reset by seller prior to shipping. In its newly reset state, only one port works at a time. Quick chat with IT guys at work suggests that I need an expensive set-up cable to configure the ports from managed to unmanaged so that they will all be ‘plug and play’. Is this right? Is there a way for me to easily get all 8 ports working without trying to track down an expensive cable? All help appreciated!

Posted on: 26 November 2018 by Guinnless

Google for Cisco 2960 reset.  Essentially pressing and holding the Mode button down for 7 seconds or more should turn it into an unmanage switch.
If you want to factory reset it then you'll need a cable - cheap off eBay.

Posted on: 26 November 2018 by piggy

To enter the IOS Command line then you would need a Console cable but these are cheap which would enable you to configure the unit.

If you google “factory reset 2960” you will see some utube videos to help you. Once you factory reset the 2960 then you should be able to use all the ports.

Andy

Posted on: 26 November 2018 by Billy Rubin

Brilliant - thanks both!

Posted on: 27 November 2018 by ChrisSU

If the seller reset the switch properly, it should work as a regular unmanaged switch, so I don't think they did it. 

A proper reset is more than just pressing the button, and if it has old settings on it, you will probably need to log into it as Piggy says. If, like me, you don't have experience of doing this sort of stuff using the CLI it may involve a fair bit of head scratching, so you may consider contacting the seller and asking them to sort it, or maybe someone from your IT dept.