I bought a used Cisco 7960 phone. When I started configuring it, I got in to problem when it didn’t let me modify the configuration because I never know the password. So i tried to find that how can i reset Cisco 7960 default factory. At the end I found the following solution which I’m going to share.
Simply hold down the # key while you power-cycle the phone. (If you already have the SIP firmware loaded, simply press * and 6 and Settings at the same time, and the phone will reboot. Then press and hold the # key while it boots.)
After a second or two, the phone display will say:
Reset key sequence detected
The headset, mute, and speakerphone lights will cycle. Now, simply press the following keys:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * 0 #
Now, the phone will ask you whether or not you want to save your network configuration. I usually press 2 for no.
Save network cfg? 1=yes 2=no
The display will then say:
Factory reset initiated
and the phone will continue to boot. There you have it a quick and easy way to do a factory reset.
There is no difference between Cisco 7940 and 7960. The only difference I can see is 7940 has two lines/buttons and 7960 phone has 6 lines/button. You can use same SIP version on both models with all same configurations.
I got a couple of Cisco 7940 and 7960 IP phones and tried almost every thing that’s relevant to SIP firmware and Asterisk. Therefore i went through different experience and some issues as well, hopefully those all I will discuss later. For now let’s try to load the SIP firmware on a Cisco 7960 IP phone, also we will configure it’s SIP account with Asterisk PBX. Basically i can’t see any difference between Cisco 7940 and Cisco 7960 except one button but that really doesn’t matter if you are using SIP firmware. If you need Cisco 7960 help or Cisco 7940 help, you are on right place.
Cisco phone often come with SCCP protocol which probably Asterisk doesn’t support. So we need to install SIP firmware on the Cisco phone the latest SIP firmware version is 8.2 but you may have some natting issues there fore 7.4 will be a best option. If you got a new Cisco 7960 phone have SCCP firmware then you can’t install Cisco 7.4 firmware directly, first you will have to load SIP firmware version 6.x then you will upgrade it to 7.4.