PostgreSQL 8.2.5 slow performance on INSERT on Linux

Hi all,

I'm busy evaluating PostgreSQL and I'm having performance problems on one of
my servers. I have a very simple one table database, and the client using
Mono 1.2.5.1 is running a loop doing INSERTs on the table. Initially I
tested this on my development PC, an old P4 system with 2GB RAM and 10,000
INSERTs took ~12 secs on average, which I was fairly satisfied with. I then
moved everything over to our test server, a new Dell 1950 server with quad
core Xeon processors, 4GB RAM and SCSI hdd expecting to see better
performance, but instead performance dropped to ~44 secs for 10,000 INSERTs.
This obviously is not acceptable. Both the PC and server are running the
exact same PostgreSQL version, Mono version, client application and both
tests were run under very low load and on an empty table. I noticed that CPU
utilization on the Dell server is very low, 1-2% utilization, so obviously
it's not a load problem. Only the test application is accessing the
database.

So my question is, can anyone please give me some tips on what commands or
tools I can use to try and pin down where exactly the performance drop is
coming from? I'm obviously new to PostgreSQL so even basic checks can be
relevant.

Kind regards

Beyers Cronje