OK, someone tell me what to look at to try and diagnose this problem.
Suddenly last week, my PC started taking 30 seconds longer than usual to start the boot process. I am not talking about starting windows, I am talking about sending any kind of video signal to the monitor.
I turn on the monitor, and then fire up the PC. The monitor says "no signal" for about 30 seconds before the bios/boot sequence appears. I can not hear any strange noises like the HD is going bad or anything. And once the PC does boot, I have no problems at all.