Thanks all for you help..
In case this will help someone else..
I ended up uninstalling the previous php rpm by finding out which version rpm I had installed and then using the rpm -e php4.0.4.- (there were 3 packages i needed to uninstall.. imap rpm and something else.. You will receive an error when trying to install the new rpm's that will let you know which other rpm's to uninstall)
I then downloaded all of the new rpm's located here:
http://rpms.arvin.dk/php/rh71/i686/ (for RedHat7.1 only) including php-4.0.6 and mod_php (and php-mysql package)..
I received a few errors during install but I quickly found the fixes based on error messages.
Ex. It wouldn't allow me to rpm the mod_php package because it said I was missing an 'mm' something or other.. I then found that I needed a package installed first before I could install the mod_php file. You can get this package here:
http://rpms.arvin.dk/mm/rh71/
(called mm-1.1.3-6.arvin.rh7.1.i586.rpm)
Once I installed all this, the php worked perfectly and had mysql support..
hope this helps,