Can we not say then that alarm has interrupted MySql C Calls (e.g. calls to the db driver), contrary to what you said?

No.

        while ( @row = $sth->fetchrow_array ) {

        while($time_ran <= $max_time) {

            $conter++;
            $time2 = time;
            $time_ran = $time2 - $time1;
        } 
                                        
    }
[download]

isn't C.