Cable help

[gatorhead]

Hey guys and gals! I am an avid car enthusiast, with a love of all things camaro. I belong to several auto forums and have not been able to find what I am looking for and was hoping that I could get the help I need here as it keeps popping up during all my searches lol.

So what I have is a 2 transistor serial ALDL cable. I do not have a serial port available on my laptop, so I used my desktop and lengthened the wire so it would reach the car. I am using freescan, or rather trying to. The vehicle is a 1995 Firebird Formula with an LT1 V8, VIN P.

Here is what is happening/not happening: When I log into freescan it says cable enabled and ready. I turn the key to the car on, then I click the start option on the program. It begins to send and recieve bytes. It states "ONIDLE-IDLE HEADER RECOGNIZED" then it will scroll for a few seconds and it says "UNRECOGNIZED HEADER" "SHUTUP SENT TO ECU" . It will go through this over and over but will not do anything else. I dont know if it is the cable or what. I have checked everything on the cable and it all seems to be working like it is supposed to. I don't know if it needs a driver installed on the computer or not, so PLEASE if you have any suggestions or ideas I would love to hear them. I am only trying ot retrieve the DTC's at this point.
Thanks in advance!
Jack