PC card 5220 - incompaibility problem with Inspiron 5000

I purchased a PC card (5220) for my laptop & tried to install it. All appeared to go well until I tried to activate the card & it would not activate. It appeared that all was installed correctly & the system test said 'Successful' but the signal strength was zero %. After chatting with a Verizon tech. it was decided to be an incompatibility problem. Is there a patch for this problem, or perhaps another card that works with the 5000, the Sierra 555 air card is no longer available. The PC card works fine on a newer computer (not mine though) running Winows XP. My Dell is 4 years old & running Windows 98 second edition.

Any input appreciated