Sqlsrv sqlsrv_num_rows FALSE, adding cursor type times out

Question

$sql = "SELECT  * FROM lastdeath";

$result = sqlsrv_query( $con, $sql);
if( $result === false )
{
 die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

$row_count = sqlsrv_num_rows($result);
echo $row_count;

if ($row_count === false)
      echo "\nerror\n";

On this one i dont have cursor type set, however if id use

$result = sqlsrv_query( $con, $sql , array(), array( "Scrollable" => SQLSRV_CURSOR_KEYSET ));

or any other cursor type the whole script will time out in 30s.

and without, the num_rows returns False.