I have always used a straight thru cable for both as well and have not had any problems. The only problems that I have encountered connecting, is when I was told that I could could connect to either of the two serial ports by tech support. I then learned you can only use the top one. Also had a STS shipped with the connectors for the serial ports going to the board swapped, so I was unable to connect to the top port until I swapped the jumpers around. Have you tried the WinDBA instead of hyper-terminal?