Im asking a friend who has a server in that hosting as I dont remenber the name right now, hope they still have this low prices.
I think that you are right and the problem is when you set the website in autorefresh, I didn't have time to check the php code so Im not really sure but probably the memory liberation needs to be optimized.
The latency problem is very strange and more when you have everything in the same computer, my guess is the same as you, a problem with the HD, I dont think that the two apps actually share any written files as both works in network level to communicate. Actually as I ran this apps from different HD's (my server has 6) probably thats where you have the problem. What this does your machine have? at least 7200rpm sata2?