I have a GX150 and had that same problem when messing about with drivers, it hangs on restart? It never seems to get to the point where it turns off? But there is no orange text that says you can turn off your computer?

I fixed it by reinstalling windows over and over until I got the right driver combination that didnt cause it to hang.
I also flashed the BIOS during my driver finding odyssey

bf_bullpup wrote on 2023-12-27, 18:43:

Hello everyone. For those of you familiar with Dell Optiplex GX150 or similar systems, is there a BIOS setting I have overlooked that would enable my computer to actually restart by itself when I select Restart in a Windows menu? I had a dual booted system (Windows 98 SE and Windows XP Pro) and after trying to install a bunch of drivers, selecting Restart for either system no longer works. The display turns off but the power button remains lit on my computer. I am now working on a triple boot setup (MS-DOS 6.22, 98, and XP) and even with my hard drive totally wiped out, the computer still won't restart for me (I experienced that installing DOS and being told the computer would restart). It's not the end of the world if my computer can't restart by itself anymore, but it would save me a little bit of time not having to reach other to power off and power back on each time. Thank you!

This sounds like an ACPI problem and you probably need to reinstall the Intel chipset drivers.

I never really had a problem with the chipset drivers, it was more to do with the graphics... Thats not to say the chipset drivers didnt cause their own problems too though.

Thank you both. I just tried flashing the BIOS and then seeing if my model has chipset drivers from Dell. No joy. My motherboard seems to be falling apart anyway. The accelerated graphics port (AGP) stopped working as well. For now the computer is still functional and the motherboard isn't difficult or prohibitively expensive to replace.

For those curious, the Dell drivers for the GX 150 can be found there:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-zw/produ … x-gx150/drivers

I appreciate the replies so far!

Believe it or not, my computer is now restarting normally. I did re-install Windows XP in the first partition and I guess that helped, even though it doesn't really make sense to me. Thank you everyone.

Yeah the driver support isnt nothing to write home about from Dell.
I have kept mine rather basic, just running Windows 95 now, I wanted it to run Windows 3.11 but called no joy when I couldnt find any of the drivers for it and went back to 95.
Mine is the desktop version, so not as adaptable as the tower now as small as the SFF desktop versions but the AGP and 2x PCI have made it decent.

There are quite a few spares for it on ebay though, and they all seem cheap enough too.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-29, 03:37:

Yeah the driver support isnt nothing to write home about from Dell. I have kept mine rather basic, just running Windows 95 now, […]
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Yeah the driver support isnt nothing to write home about from Dell.
I have kept mine rather basic, just running Windows 95 now, I wanted it to run Windows 3.11 but called no joy when I couldnt find any of the drivers for it and went back to 95.
Mine is the desktop version, so not as adaptable as the tower now as small as the SFF desktop versions but the AGP and 2x PCI have made it decent.

There are quite a few spares for it on ebay though, and they all seem cheap enough too.

I have the SFF version of the GX 150 as well! I bought the install CD for it (and similar Optiplexes) off eBay. Some of the drivers work well but others, like one for Dell's own OEM Sound Blaster, don't work so I have to obtain drivers elsewhere.

Thats why Ii ended up with Win95 on it.
You think the GX150 is bad. I have their GX280 running Windows 98SE. The sound chip is ADI but it wont use ADI drivers only VIA Soundmax vinyl drivers!

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-29, 03:50:

Thats why Ii ended up with Win95 on it.
You think the GX150 is bad. I have their GX280 running Windows 98SE. The sound chip is ADI but it wont use ADI drivers only VIA Soundmax vinyl drivers!

A pity! Back in those days Dell had the reputation of making the best (or most reliable?) PCs so I keep getting them!

Now my computer is able to restart normally. I read somewhere that removing the CMOS battery for 30 seconds to reset it usually does the trick. That makes sense as I didn't do anything special software-wise to change anything.

Dell is kind of odd sometimes. I get that with dying cmos battery too.

The same thing was happening on my GX100, then the problem seemed to resolve itself.
I also had to change the CMOS battery because it had gone flat, I wonder if the two things could be connected.

Spark wrote on 2024-01-02, 22:17:

The same thing was happening on my GX100, then the problem seemed to resolve itself.
I also had to change the CMOS battery because it had gone flat, I wonder if the two things could be connected.

Likely. I haven't yet taken out the battery, but over the past week I turned my computer on/off, and reset it very often, for installations, etc. (just completed a triple boot project). That probably caused the issue to right itself similar to ElectroSoldier's situation.