Slow update - index problem?

 I'm trying to perform a very simple update that is very slow. I suspect
that it is a key/index problem, but we've tried a number of things and
we're stumped. The table is:

 Column  |          Type          |               Modifiers
---------+------------------------+---------------------------------------
 ind_id  | integer                | default nextval('"ind_id_seq"'::text)
 bnr_id  | integer                | not null
 jim_id  | integer                |
 fnm     | character varying(40)  |
 nnm     | character varying(40)  |
 mnm     | character varying(40)  |
 mdn     | character varying(40)  |
 lnm     | character varying(40)  |
 cnm     | character varying(200) |
 ord     | character varying(80)  |
 eml     | character varying(80)  |
 stf_id  | character varying(9)   |
 std_id  | character varying(9)   |
 tgl_upd | boolean                |
Indexes: ind_pkey primary key btree (bnr_id),
         ind_std_id_key unique btree (std_id),
         ind_stf_id_key unique btree (stf_id),
         ind_fnm_idx btree (fnm),
         ind_ind_id_idx btree (ind_id),
         ind_lnm_idx btree (lnm),
         ind_ord_idx btree (ord)

and the query:

update ind set tgl_upd = 'f';

 The table has 19867 records, and this query takes over 20 minutes. When I
export the data to a new DB, with the same table (no indexes) it takes
about 3 seconds.

 Any ideas? Would *removing* indexes make it faster? If so, this sounds
strange. Any help/info would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Chris

--

Christopher Murtagh
Webmaster / Sysadmin
Web Communications Group
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec
Canada

Tel.: (514) 398-3122
Fax:  (514) 398-2017