I’ve got one PC using a FTDI TTL232R-3V3 USB to Serial cable and have no problems. I have another PC using a ‘proper’ USB ↔ DB9 serial converter (also using a FTDI chip) and have multiple hangs per day. Only difference (other than the converter itself) is that the TTL232R is driven through a powered USB hub…
I was only interested in case you were using a non Sun JRE (there is at least an IBM version) and that was causing the issues.