Thank you both for the valuable information. As recommended, I did a hard reset. This allowed me to connect to the router. Made all changes recommended except I missed "disable Wi-Fi Protected Setup" and I could not find "Disable Remote Management and UPNP". Then I connected 3 laptops. I was able to log into the router several times within an hour. After that, I was no longer able to log into the router!
I did a second hard reset and started over. this time I found and asserted "Disable Remote Management and UPNP" and only have two of the laptops connected. Also I did a reboot this time and created a backup. I did all this last night and I as still able to log into the router this morning. I will be monitoring connections and internet usage as well over the next few days.
Again, thank you again and I will be digging into this more.