2504 WLC - Reset and connection

[Nathan Smith]

I have purchased two refurbished 2504 WLCs.

Is there a duration or procedure of power cycling and pressing the reset button on the front panel of the 2504 that ensures complete factory reset?  I've been trying to do a reset (holding in after power up for about 10 seconds until ALM LED illuminates) but I don't know that is doing a full reset.

I've connected to port 2 with a cat5 cable connected directly to the NIC on a laptop.  I never get a DHCP address issued so I tried setting a fixed IP address to 192.168.1.100 / 255.255.255.0 GW 192.168.1.1.  On both units I don't get any responses to an http://192.168.1.1 in Firefox or IE.  No responses to ping either.  I tried the other physical ports on the 2504 but no difference.  Both 2504 units behave the same way.  Any recommendations to make a connection to the web GUI?

I ordered a NULL modem adapter to try as my normal serial port cable gets no response on the console connection using the console cable.  Maybe that will let me in?

[Chad K]

You should be able to access the WLC using the console and usual serial configuration 9600 baud, 8 data bits, parity 0, Stop bits 1.

At console you can use the command reset system if you are able to get command prompt, otherwise you can type recover-config upon boot up when prompts for user name. 

User:  recover-config

[Nathan Smith]

Thanks.  Once the null modem adapter comes I'll give that a try.  I was hoping the reset button would be more useful.

Nathan.