Question: I am getting a BSOD on windows, why and how do I fix it?
Answer: This is a a known problem with the Prolific usb to serial driver impacting all cables that are based on the prolific chipset including the IOGear cable.
I have seen computers work fine with this chipset and driver, but then at some point BSOD and from there on it will cause problems. It seems as though the driver does not handle a potential resource conflict and Prolific has been slow to fix it.
The best and easiest solution is to buy an FTDI based cable
Update:
Prolific has released a fairly new (May25, 2011) driver that appears to finally fix this: New Driver
This driver will not auto-update in Windows (on my machines, anyhow), You must remove the old driver first using the device manager, or the following utility if the device manager doesn't work: Driver Removal Utility
The software and driver update page is here: http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31
