Stupid mistake on my side. Since nobody knows who really am I, I'll shamelessly confess the idiotic mistake: I had plugged the thing incorrectly.

The converter cable does work on my desktop. I offer my apologies to the people of the Republic of Taiwan. Now let's pray that it also works in my laptop... people say that sometimes it works with the desktop, but not with the laptop. Either way, the cable manufacturers did their job, period.

Funny... my nipples are very sensitive today even though I didn't smoke anything.