Wireless router question

I set up a Netgear wireless router at home about two years ago. It's worked flawlessly, but the other day, for no logical reason, it asked me for a password before it would allow me and my Mac to have access to the Internet. (My wife has able to get immediate access as usual with her PC.) Naturally, I have no idea if I needed or used a password of any kind when I set up this thing.

If I hit the "reset" button on the back of the router, is this a good or bad move?

(No, I can't look at the manual that came in the box. If I knew where that was, I'd probably have my answer.)

 

Last time that happened to me, I had to call the company (Belkin in my case). They were able to help me reset the password back to it's factory setting, and I was able to log in and change it from there. I can't imagine Netgear would be any different. although, I don't think resetting it would cause any problems. It's no different than if you lost power and it was unplugged.

 

I have a Netgear router as well. The PC runs through the router, which is why it doesn't need a password (or already has the password stored) and usually, the router is installed on the PC. If you have a protected connection, you'll need a password. Have you been able to connect using your Mac before?

If not, I'd call technical support and see if there's a way to reset it. I don't think pushing the reset button will do anything but restart it (and I don't even have a reset button, so you obviously have a different model than me).

 

I believe the default password is "netgear" but you may have changed it when you first set it up and didn't even remember doing it.

 

If you can get on your wife's PC and get into the router, you might be able to get the password out of the router settings. You can also probably download an instruction manual to the PC from the Netgear site.

 

I've never been asked for a password until this week. Some of this sounds like it's beyond my technical capabilities, but I'll give some of this a shot. What's the worst that can happen?

Be forewarned: If your power goes out tonight, you'll know the problem started at my house.

 

Yeah, this is what you should do. Go to "Control Panel" then "Network Connections" then back click on "Wireless network." There you should see a list of wireless networks (or maybe just one). Click on yours, (it'll be the one the computer is connected to) and hit the properties button. There it should let you set the password.