if an app server is out of the picture, have a look at the following URLs, which contain helpful information on the c3p0 configuration options, especially in the combination with Hibernate: http://www.hibernate.org/214.html http://www.mchange.com/projects/c3p0/index.html#hibernate-specific I'm wondering why you have set idle_test_period to zero: | <property name="hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period">0</property> | anonymous wrote : | If this is a number greater than 0, c3p0 will test all idle, pooled but unchecked-out connections, every this number of seconds. | I would start off with the values as shown in the sample config on the first link above and thus set it to 100 (seconds). Let us know if you start to see a difference. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4137703#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...