WGR614v10 mysteriously reset to defaults?

[katarina]

Our internet connectivity (wireless and wired) quit working about midnight when my son was playing an online video game with other users.

When I connected his laptop directly to the modem, I had internet access.

But, when I reconnected it to the router, I discovered that I could not log into the router with my password.

I was able to log in with the default password and enter my ISP login information and other basic configuration settings. Shortly after gaining access to the router GUI (and subsequently gaining internet access), the router checked for a new firmware update, which I went ahead and installed.

I still could not connect wirelessly. As I started reviewing configuration settings, I discovered that the wireless pass-phrase was no longer set to my 60+ character pass-phrase. It had been changed to one that was about 12 (?) characters. I didn't have time to troubleshoot (and reconfigure) further, so I temporarily disabled wireless access from the router and disconnected the laptop's ethernet cable from the router. It will be about 5 hours before I have access to the router to do any further review and configuration.

In the meantime, I need to know ... how does the router login password (and other router settings, including the wireless pass-phrase) get changed from what I had previously used if no one physically used the reset button (or the router GUI) to do this? As far as I can tell, it looks like everything was set back to factory defaults.