Bizarre connection issue?
 

I'm getting a weird connection issue, wondering if anyone has an idea what's going wrong. MS3 built by Braineack that I bought second hand, car is a 99. Connecting to a windows 8 laptop via a serial to USB cable bought from Radioshack.

https://i.imgur.com/cCXEMBi.jpg

Bizarre, huh? As in you never bothered to read about the troubles dozens of people have had with certain serial to usb adapters? Really bizarre. I'm totally with you. Try a search button. Go ahead, try it.