mysql5000,MySQL之类的查询对于5000条记录表的运行极其缓慢

I have this issue on our production server. The application stack is,

Java Web App on Tomcat 6.0.18

iBatis data access layer

MySQL 5.0 database

CentOS

The system is deployed on virtual server having around 256 MB memory.

Real problem:

The query like,

select * from customer

executes in around 10 seconds however if the following query is executed,

select * from customer where code like '%a%'

right after executing the above query, the system goes into indefinite processing and ultimately forces Tomcat to restart !.

Table statistics:

- No. of records : 5000

- Primary Key : code

The same query PHP MyAdmin executes in around 4 seconds.

Do you think it could be MySQL problem ? Any idea to debug this. I am right now enabling the detailed logs and will keep updating