In the file ../phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php, change the line
<br />$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'localhost'; // MySQL hostname or IP address
<br />to
<br />$cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = '127.0.0.1'; // MySQL hostname or IP address

<br /><br />
Explanation: MySQl and the SQL client in the first case use the socket.
<br />The change forces to use TCP.