There are a lot of possiblities. Is the cable correct? You probably need a crossover cable (TX and RX) swapped. You also need to check and make sure the serial ports on both ends are set the same (i.e. baud rate, handshaking, stop bits, etc.). Make sure that the port is enabled. I've seen people try to use a comm port only to find that a modem card installation caused the port to be disabled. You could also try using hyperterminal to talk to the instrument. If you can communicate there, you can eliminate any hardware problem.