If that were the case i think he would then have the problem for every execution, a problem that is reproducable (unless he is building dynamic sql, which is problematic...
This is more than likely not a sql issue, if it was your server rejecting connections (failed logon attempts etc) you would see exceptions on your sql instance.
We had a 6 month argument with our hosting company about the performance of their shared SAN environment. We were trying to implement 3 new clustered...