Max execution time exceeded in Unknown on line 0

Hi, I've had php (4.0.5) working fine with postgres and w-agora (forum software), but am now having trouble after trying installs of php-nuke and phpWebSite. These use mysql, which has also been freshly installed. After a reboot the <? phpinfo(); ?> tag executes immediately, but after trying to execute a php script from one of the new web apps all php scripts perform very slowly and the results include the following error at the bottom of the page: Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in Unknown on line 0 This happens even for a test page with nothing but the <? phpinfo(); ?> tag. It does seem like php is connecting to mysql, since the results that are eventually returned include database-depended content. For phpinfo() most results are returned immediately but the page hangs after the php variables heading, and results for this page are not returned until the 30 second time limit is apparently reached. Then those results are displayed, followed by the error described above. Other pages, say the admin.php page for phpWebSite, don't return anything until the time limit expires. Then what seems to be the entire page is displayed, followed by the same error line. Any help would be much appreciated. I've been beating my head against this for quite a while. Thanks, Dave De Graff