my PHP scripts hangs over a simple error

Folks: I just setup a Redhat/Apache/PHP box for testing purposes as I develop some PHP websites. The weird thing, is that the server takes FOREVER to respond when I make a very simple error in the code. On other servers it comes up with a 'Parse Error' message immediately, but not so with this box. For example, I made a page with the following code: <? echo "I'm making a purposeful mistake"; echo "The semi-colon is missing at the end of this line" echo "Now I'm going on"; ?> When I requested this page with my browser, I started my stopwatch and waited. The little blue progress bar started moving, but ever so slowly. 3 minutes later (!!!!) I got the error message: Parse error: parse error, expecting ','' or ';'' in /var/www/html/test.php on line 4 Now why didn't that come up immediately?! Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Joseph