BTW - the 2 ways to run it (first one is easier obviosly) that use the proper index:

declare @lcDataDt as datetime

set @lcDataDt = '2007-02-14'

Lowell - you da man. You are right. Here is an article that helped me:

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11611

Thanks everybody!

Matt-

Sergiy, yeah the typical query has more than 1 clause in it. Perhaps the clustered index needs to be changed, but the other DBA and I do not have time/resources...

Steve G - thanks for the reply, but same results.

John R - thanks for the reply, I had to simplify cuz the table is pretty big:

-- TABLE

The databases & datafiles are on the same server & drive. The settings of the 2 databases are identical as far as we can tell.

Thank you all for your replies. Here is the scrubbed query:

SELECT U.C_Id, U.XPNom, U.Pln_Nm, U.U_Num, U.APD_Id, P.SttA_Id, P.PName

  , MAX(U.X7) AS X7 

  , MAX(U.X8) AS X8 

  , MIN(U.LNm) AS LNm,...

Pam - yes, I should have included this info before. There are 3 left joins that when changed to inner joins,  cause the query to run at normal time/speed.

PW - Thank you for the reply. All of our tables have a clustered index. Is there anything specifically I can look up about DISTRIBUTION in BOL or online?

BTW -...