Connection closing problem!

Hi, Does anyone know of or have a problem that means that the HTML server will not receive the message back from the MySQL server to say close the connection. The two servers are on two seperate machines. The html server is Apache using the PHP scripting language. The error messages I am getting, not so much error messages but messages, when I do a netstat on the html machine state that alot of the sql connections are time_wait or close_wait. This should cause no problem I here you say but when the majority of the html server connections are on time_wait or close_wait then the site starts to slow right down. And eventually cause database server busy errors for users. On the SQL server the netstat results appear to be fine with the majority of them being Established. Can any shed some light on this problem or even tell me of a way to fix it. If any questions about the problem need to be asked I will try and answer them. Thanks in advance. Drew Andrew Toussaint Richardson-Shaw Pty Ltd drew@ricshaw.com.au