SW Catalyst 2960 mode button does not interrupt boot process

[sawesa]

Hello all,

I'm new in this community, thanks for your help in advance.

I have a switch Catalyst 2960-X (specifically C2960X-24PSQ-L) that has been taken from one location and I have no idea what the enable password might be.

So I have followed the procedure of:

switch off the device

press the mode button

turn on the device while pressing the mode button

and this should do the trick but it does not.... for some reason, the boot is never interrupted and the flash gets loaded while Im pressing the mode button!

I have seen dozens of videos of how the procedure is done, I have tried many times, I'm sure not to release the mode button (which seems to be the only real instruction I have to follow) but the boot is never interrupted. 

The only difference I can appreciate between my switch and the others I see in the vidoes is that mine has bot the mode button in the upper corner while the rest have got it in the lower corner.

Maybe this specific model works bit different?

Any tips would be really appreciated, this device is sitting on my desk and not leaving until reconfigured.... 

CPU rev: B
Image passed digital signature verification
Board rev: 5
Testing DataBus...
Testing AddressBus...
Testing Memory from 0x00000000 to 0x1fffffff.../
Using driver version 4 for media type 1
Xmodem file system is available.
Base ethernet MAC Address: 00:a2:89:c1:7b:80
The password-recovery mechanism is enabled.
USB EHCI 1.00
USB EHCI 1.00
USB Console INIT
Initializing Flash...
mifs[5]: 12 files, 1 directories
mifs[5]: Total bytes     :    1806336
mifs[5]: Bytes used      :     829440
(....)


Press RETURN to get started!

[marce1000]

 - Make sure you press the Mode button long enough . else could be a hardware problem - not sure though.

 M.

[sawesa]

Yeah I'm holding it all the time while the loading just keeps going...

Any other suggestion? I'm very reluctant to accept this is a hardware issue :(

[sawesa · Accepted solution]

So it was indeed a hardware problem!!

A colleague of mine helped me out, we opened the device, located the switch under the mode button which was totally loose. 

He soldered it back to its place. 

Then the problem we had is that once we put everything in place again, the mode button was constantly pressed, probably we soldered a tiny bit forward that it was meant to.

To solve this we removed the plastic button and now the mode-switch can be pressed with a pen. 

I by no means suggest you to do the same if you have this problem, better to take it to the official service, in our case this worked, but you could end up with a bricked device.