Slow MSSQL access when using TCP/IP

Hello! :) I've run into a problem where connecting to our MSSQL Server from our webserver using a TCP/IP connection is a -whole- lot slower than connecting to the same server using a Named Pipes connection (we're talking 10 to 20 times slower). We are running SQL server on a non-standard port (1533 vs 1433). I do believe we had tried running it on port 1433 and still had the slowdown though. In the Client Configuration utility on the WEB server I use the following settings: Server Alias: mssql_named_pipes Network Library: Named Pipes Connection parameters: \\sqlserver\pipe\sql\query Server Alias: mssql_tcpip Network Library: TCP/IP Connection parameters: 192.168.1.7,1533 I want to make sure to point out that everything -does- operate fine when using the TCP/IP connection - it's just extremely slow. We've tried connecting to other MSSQL servers and ran into the same problems where it will run fast when using Named Pipes, but slow when using TCP/IP. Here is are 3 benchmarks of just the mssql_connect() between Named Pipes and TCP/IP versions so you can see how much slower it is. This is a sample of running it three times (I've run this from the web and from command line and gotten the same results both times): Named Pipes took 13.3231ms TCP/IP took 205.6559ms Named Pipes took 12.3510ms TCP/IP took 174.2430ms Named Pipes took 13.2550ms TCP/IP took 149.0561ms Here's the code that generated the above: -- snip snip -- function DoBenchmark( $name, $server, $numtimes ) { $start_time = getmicrotime(); for ( $i = 0; $i < $numtimes; ++$i ) { $link_id = mssql_connect( $server, DATABASE_USER, DATABASE_PASSWORD ); if ( !$link_id ) exit; mssql_close( $link_id ); } $total_ms = ( getmicrotime() - $start_time ) * 1000; printf( "$name took %.4fms<br>", $total_ms ); } function getmicrotime() { list( $usec, $sec ) = explode( " " , microtime() ); return (float)$usec + (float)$sec; } DoBenchmark( "Named Pipes", "mssql_named_pipes", $runs ); DoBenchmark( "TCP/IP", "mssql_tcpip", $runs ); -- snip snip -- Finally, here's the web server and sql server information: SQL Server OS: Win2K Server SP1 SQL Version: MSSQL 7.0 WEB Server OS: Win2K Server SP2 WEB Server PHP: PHP 4.0.6 w/ latest extensions WEB Server: IIS 5.0 We are using PHP in CGI mode. The PHP.exe is compiled in-house, however there are no MSSQL related changes in our version. Here are the results of "php -m": Running PHP 4.0.6 Zend Engine v1.0.6, Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Zend Technologies with Zend Optimizer v1.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2000, by Zend Technologies [PHP Modules] standard bcmath Calendar com variant ftp mysql odbc pcre session xml wddx gd mssql Zend Optimizer [Zend Modules] Zend Optimizer -- From what I've been reading it sounds like there are a good number of people who successfully use TCP/IP connections to MSSQL, so it sounds like I may just be doing something wrong - I just don't know what. I hope that explains the problem. All I want is to be able to connect to the MSSQL server using TCP/IP and not suffer the slowdowns we're currently suffering :) Thanks in advance for any help. -Jah