[Zope] delays when processing form posts

I get unexpectded long delays from Zope e.g. for processing form posts. For example from an edit view under the management screen, simply requesting "wider" takes at least 20 seconds (on a Pentium 2, 400 MHz under W2000). I'm not on a network, and I remember sometimes having had problems working off-line with HTTP servers in Python (blocking until time-out in a socket call). I have tried to trace socket calls, but haven't seen anything unexpected. I'm new to Zope - maybe this is normal behaviour?? Any hints? christer fernstrom