Strange 5 second pause with PHP command line interface (related to mysql/mysqli extension)

Question

I\'m getting a strange 5 to 7 second pause when executing PHP scripts from the command-line PHP client (PHP 5.2 on Windows).

During this pause the PHP script just ap

Answer 1

I also experienced an annoying 2 second delay running PHP from the command line under Windows 7 64bit.

This version had a delay:
php.exe (v5.3.5) shipped with ZendServer Community Edition

This version was wonderfully quick:
php.exe (v5.3.6) shipped with EasyPHP

(Sorry to bump an ancient thread, but hopefully this helps others Googling this issue.)