Configuration errors

I am working on a cisco 1700 series router but the IOS has been erased. The router is now producing is a mass of garbled text, which I cannot stop. Does anyone know of a specific key or key combination that will bring me out of this? Also, before, when attempting to load a new IOS the router would not change to the higher set terminal speed to enable faster download. I was able to set the baud rate to 115200 during configuration, but on download it was apparent that this speed was not available as the download time was shown as around 7 1/2 hours! Any suggestions would be appreciated.