Three group velocity dispersion (GVD) compensation schemes, i.e., the post-compensation, precompensation and hybrid-compensation schemes, are discussed with considering polarization mode dispersion (PMD). In the 10- and 40-Gbit/s non-return-zero (NRZ) on-off-key (OOK) systems, three physical factors, Kerr effect, GVD and PMD are considered. The numerical results show that, when the impact of PMD is taken into account, the GVD pre-compensation scheme performs best with more than 1 dB better of average eye-opening penalty (EOP) when input power is up to 10 dBm in the 10-Gbit/s system. However the GVD post-compensation scheme performs best for the case of 40 Gbit/s with input power less than 13 dBm, and GVD pre-compensation will be better if the input power increased beyond this range. The results are different from those already reported under the assumption that the impact of PMD is neglected. Therefore, the research in this paper provide a different insight into the system optimization when PMD, Kerr effect and GVD are considered.