Mysqli on WAMP, error - connection attempt failed

Added Info : I tried it with the fresh install of the codeigniter, simply adding $this->load->database ( ); to the default controller triggers the same error.

I checked my phpinfo and the mysqli is installed. I checked it with the following code and it is working.

Still when I open one of my Codeigniter project, it shows error : A connection attempt failed, why ?

Does all this means there is something wrong with Codeigniter ?

<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "root", "", "myDatabase");

/* check connection */
if ($mysqli->connect_errno) {
    printf("Connect failed: %s\n", $mysqli->connect_error);
    exit();
}

/* check if server is alive */
if ($mysqli->ping()) {
    printf ("Our connection is ok!\n");
} else {
    printf ("Error: %s\n", $mysqli->error);
}

/* close connection */
$mysqli->close();
?>

/*** Results in : Our connection is ok! ***/

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: mysqli::real_connect(): (HY000/2002): A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

Filename: mysqli/mysqli_driver.php

Line Number: 135

This is the database code in Question, the codeigniter system file location is : system/database/drivers/mysqli/mysqli_driver.php

// --------------------------------------------------------------------

/**
 * Database connection
 *
 * @param   bool    $persistent
 * @return  object
 * @todo    SSL support
 */
public function db_connect($persistent = FALSE)
{
    // Do we have a socket path?
    if ($this->hostname[0] === '/')
    {
        $hostname = NULL;
        $port = NULL;
        $socket = $this->hostname;
    }
    else
    {
        // Persistent connection support was added in PHP 5.3.0
        $hostname = ($persistent === TRUE && is_php('5.3'))
            ? 'p:'.$this->hostname : $this->hostname;
        $port = empty($this->port) ? NULL : $this->port;
        $socket = NULL;
    }

    $client_flags = ($this->compress === TRUE) ? MYSQLI_CLIENT_COMPRESS : 0;
    $mysqli = mysqli_init();

    $mysqli->options(MYSQLI_OPT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 10);

    if ($this->stricton)
    {
        $mysqli->options(MYSQLI_INIT_COMMAND, 'SET SESSION sql_mode="STRICT_ALL_TABLES"');
    }

    return $mysqli->real_connect($hostname, $this->username, $this->password, $this->database, $port, $socket, $client_flags)
        ? $mysqli : FALSE;
}

Config File

$active_group = 'default';
$query_builder = TRUE;

$db['default'] = array(
    'dsn'   => '',
    'hostname' => 'localhost',
    'username' => 'root',
    'password' => '',
    'database' => 'myProject',
    'dbdriver' => 'mysql',
    'dbprefix' => '',
    'pconnect' => FALSE,
    'db_debug' => TRUE,
    'cache_on' => FALSE,
    'cachedir' => '',
    'char_set' => 'utf8',
    'dbcollat' => 'utf8_general_ci',
    'swap_pre' => '',
    'encrypt' => FALSE,
    'compress' => FALSE,
    'stricton' => FALSE,
    'failover' => array(),
    'save_queries' => TRUE
);

I figured it out and I hope the solution will help someone facing the same problem as me.

Since my server was running slow, I was searching for solutions, I tried a lot of thing but nothing worked, then I changed host name for the database connection from localhost to 127.0.0.1 and it worked. This change made mysqli work and it made my server a lot faster

So now the new configuration settings for the codeigniter project looks like this :

$db['default'] = array(
    'dsn'   => '',
    'hostname' => '127.0.0.1',    // See the change
    'username' => 'root',
    'password' => '',
    'database' => 'myProject',
    'dbdriver' => 'mysqli',       // See the change
    'dbprefix' => '',
    'pconnect' => FALSE,
    'db_debug' => TRUE,
    'cache_on' => FALSE,
    'cachedir' => '',
    'char_set' => 'utf8',
    'dbcollat' => 'utf8_general_ci',
    'swap_pre' => '',
    'encrypt' => FALSE,
    'compress' => FALSE,
    'stricton' => FALSE,
    'failover' => array(),
    'save_queries' => TRUE
);