Mysql, PHP and UTF-8

Hi!

I've created a mysql database (v4.1.9) with the default charset utf8
and I'm doing some web pages with PHP (v4.3.2) also using UTF-8.

Database insertion works great, even when using strange characters but
search doesn't work always, for instance:
- a search for "não" or "NãO" gives 3 results
- "nao", "nÃo" and "NÃO" gives no results

Seems like the search is not case-insensitive (or accent-insensitive
for that matter) when using accented characters (or any greater than
127).

I've double checked the mysql table settings, did a "ALTER TABLE
mytablename DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci" just to
make sure and nothing works.

Anyone got ideas on how to solve this problem? Thanks in advance!