Is your wireless connection losing speed? Someone may be jumping on your connection and stealing your bandwidth. If so, you may need to reset your password for your Linksys router. Resetting your password also works if you have forgotten the password for your router.

Reset your router to factory standards. To do so, you need to hold down the reset button on the router, for 30 seconds. Once the router is reset, you need to connect a computer to the Ethernet connection on the back of the router.

Open a web browser on the computer (I.E. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Firefox). Type “http://192.168.1.1” into the address bar. This will open a popup that asks for your user name and password.

On older LinkSys routers, the default username is blank and the default password is “admin.” On newer Linksys routers, both the default username and the default password are set to “admin.”

After you have entered the default username and password, you will be sent to the configuration page for your router.  Go to the Management tab and change the administrator password to one of your choosing. The best passwords have both letters and numbers in them. This makes them harder to crack.

Enable the WEP or WAP security option. This will keep neighbors from tapping into your wireless network.  You can navigate off your router page and your router’s password is now changed.

Some people prefer to change password monthly, but unless you have very sensitive information or people keep guessing your password, there is really no need to change it that often.