php increase max timeout

We are having problems with our wordpress site.  Was told to increase the max timeout value in the php.ini file.  Was also told to click on php.ini file in ftp and rename it to php5.ini. I did this even though it sounded weird.  Techs support said that without having the file named php5.ini it was going to level 4 and lower coding.  How can just renaming a file change the contents of the file?  

This is the code in the file. Can someone please advise where I make the change.

register_globals = off
allow_url_fopen = off

expose_php = Off
max_input_time = 60
variables_order = "EGPCS"
extension_dir = ./
upload_tmp_dir = /tmp
precision = 12
SMTP = relay-hosting.secureserver.net
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset="


; Only uncomment zend optimizer lines if your application requires Zend Optimizer support

;[Zend]
;zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.3
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-3.3.3
;zend_extension=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.3/ZendExtensionManager.so
;zend_extension_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-3.3.3/ZendExtensionManager_TS.so


; -- Be very careful to not to disable a function which might be needed!
; -- Uncomment the following lines to increase the security of your PHP site.

;disable_functions = "highlight_file,ini_alter,ini_restore,openlog,passthru,
;		      phpinfo, exec, system, dl, fsockopen, set_time_limit,
;                     popen, proc_open, proc_nice,shell_exec,show_source,symlink"

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