PC card modem, no dial tone

I have a friends laptop and its having troubles with a 56k 3com PC card modem. windows 98se sees it and installs it, shows up up in the device manager as an installed device. So i assume its working inside. But when i go to dial something, it tells me no dail tone detected. The line its connected to is working, but im not sure if im plugging it in right. There are two connectors on the back of the PC card, a small one and a big one. The cord that my friend has connects to the small connector and then has a rj-11 connector at the other side. Maybe the cord is bad? My friend told me that she got the laptop from her grandma and since then the modem cant find a dail tone... Or is the modems connecter bad and not hooking up the cord right... What do yall think? Buy new modem? or is it a setting in windows thats not right... ITs set to tone dialing. Also
th laptop has no internal modem, but there is a rj-11 connector on the back, what is this for?

Thanks, Andy
system specs
p1 @ 133mhz
48 mb ram
2 gig hd
fresh install of windows 98SE
drivers for modem updated.