froggyjo -
It's pretty amazing that both of our computers have the same issue - I've also found a few others out there with the same issue out in other forums on the internet, but I (obviously) haven't found any of them that have a solution. If I find anything that works, I'll definitely post back on this forum, but if you find a fix for the issue, please post back and let me know. This problem is really strange in that it doesn't appear to affect the performance of the computer at all, but it is a little scary in that it keeps you wondering if someday it just won't decide to start at all. Of everything that I did, reinstalling the operating software had the greatest impact on the computer's performance even though it didn't solve the 3 start problem. It was also by far the most time-consuming of anything that I did in an attempt to fix the problem.
Thanks for letting me know that you're out there with the same computer issue - it's comforting to know I'm not the only one with this problem.