To identify problem queries, you can monitor this: <http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/slow-query-log.html> And it might be worth while to invest in the "High Performanec MySQL" book (O'Reilly) -- <http://dev.mysql.com/books/hpmysql-excerpts/ch06.html> I rarely work with PHP -- does it have any kind of connection pooling? If so, that'd be another area to look at. FWIW! -- Hassan Schroeder ------------------------ hassan.schroeder at gmail.com