MySQL Driver Problems

We are currently using MySQL version 5.0.26, and using the MySQL JDBC Driver version 3.1.12. We are having problems with the connection dropping/timing out. So, we try versions 3.1.13, 3.1.14 and 5.0.4 of the driver, but they are causing additional problems with transactions on tables with combo keys. Any ideas?

FYI, we already use “select 1” in the query validation