Problems with Internet on Windows 98

Can anybody figure out what's wrong with my computer? I am running windows 98 on a very old fujitsu laptop. It works fine except I can't view certain sites because it only has internet explorer 5. I would update, but the windows update says that there are problems connecting to my computer and it says that if they continue I should contact my service provider. I know it has nothing to do with my service, because everything works fine on my newer computers. I have road runner cable internet with a wireless hub, and my laptop uses a D-link DWL-650 card to hook up to it. I tried downloading just internet explorer SP1, but the downloader within the install can't connect. I tried downloading firefox, but on every site i go to it says "connection refused by www.whatever.com." I have had other problems, like, limewire can't work on this computer and stuff like that. There is some internet setting that isn't working. I downloaded all the windows updates manually, and I installed all the ones for IE5. But that didn't fix the problem. I'm not sure what's wrong. Any ideas?