Optimizing POSTGRESQL config

I'm new to POSTGRESQL but me and my friend are trying
to benchmark the database by populating one table with
100,000 records, affecting around 5 columns in one
row.  The problem is our processing time is very
slow...around 30 minutes to 1 hour.  There are times
it just hangs and stop execution.  I was just
wondering if this was normal.

We structured our PHP code in such a way that isn't
optimized in order to isolate possible problems with
the database.   We also used indices to speed up the
process from the database side.  Any suggestions on
how to optimize Postgre SQL through its config files?
Thanks in advance!

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com