serial port cables

I am having trouble getting a mouse running. I was advised that it may be the cables between M/B and serial port. Apparantly there are 2 types: pulling back the port face, the wires run from the horizontal cross-section of the cable either up-down-up-down etc to the pins or something different to this (up-up-down-up…).

The problem occured after changing a Pentium TX m/b to an earlier version of this m/b. I’ve tried the usual troubleshooting; just wondering if there ARE actually different types of serial port cables and if there are I shall try them.