slow session_start()

Hi, I am getting 4-5 minute delays when I call the session_start() function in one of my scripts, I reduced it to a small script that just echoes some html, but still calling session_start() causes a major delay. My /tmp directory is almost empty and there is a lot of disk space. It's an AMD Athlon(TM) XP 3000+ with a Gig of RAM. Anyone knows what could cause this? <?php session_start(); echo "<html>\n"; echo "<body>\n"; echo "<h3>we are here</h3>\n"; echo "</body>\n"; echo "</html>\n"; ?> I am using the PHP (4.3.2) shipped with RHEL. Does RH backport fixes from the newer versions of PHP to their packages? Can this be the cause of the slowdowns I am experiencing when calling session_start()? Yesterday, when I was setting this site up, everything was working great, today it's dog slow. Thanks for any pointers. Arshavir