Apache/PHP, New PHP connection does not kill previous unfinished connection.

[!jeff!{BIGWORDS} <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a script which takes a long time to complete. Thus it is loaded into 
an iframe after the main page has completely loaded.

If the user decides not to wait for the iframe's script completion, they 
should be able to click on a menubar item and go to another page on the site.

However, the web server (apache 1.3) will not serve up any other page to 
that user until his long running request finishes.

Even if the user clicks the 'stop' button, the script continues to run on 
the server without a connection to the user... AND apache will not serve up 
a new page until the long running script completes.

Is there a setting in either apache or php (4.x) which will fix this 
behavior?  It seems to me that when the browser kills the connection to 
apache, apache should then kill the php process and serve up whatever new 
request the browser has made.  Instead, it's refusing to reply until the 
previous request completes, even though there is no longer an active 
connection to the browser.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the Iframe... If I create a page 
with a link to the long running script, I cannot link to any other page, 
even after clicking stop, until the long running script ends.

in apache I have keepalive On, but have tried with it off. I use 
mysql_pconnect, safe mode is off, globals is on...

Kind Regards,
Jeff