Consulting "Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems" by Ott is probably in order. Or maybe not as the chapter on ESD scared me. Put it in a metal box with no connections to the outside world. It's the only safe...
MODBUS RTU is pretty simple. Unless you are trying to reuse code written by someone else for different hardware. Then you will have to dig into that code to see if it is doing what you need it to. Is it using the serial...