new user problem

Hey guys and gals... hoping someone can lead me in the right direction with the problem I am having. Let's start with the basics:
Windows 2003 running IIS6
WWF 7.92
SQL 2000 on same server
Exchange 2003 as remote SMTP server
WWF is using ASPEmail

Ok, when I have a new user register, he/she fills out the info and clicks register. Well the page sits there for like 60 seconds or longer and finally goes on to the next screen.  Now once they start posting, for the first 10 to 20 posts their post do the same thing... sit there for 60 seconds or so waiting on the next page to pop up.  Now I looked this up here and found that this could be related to the SMTP being 'remote' but my SMTP server sits next to the IIS/SQL server and is dedicated to mostly forum traffic.  Neither of the two servers are over loaded but still my new users get this slow posting issue. Now to the weird part... after the first... say.. 10 to 20 posts... the users all state that everything starts to speed up dramatically. So, after researching it here I tried implementing a local SMTP server and using CDONTS and CDOSYS neither of which worked.  Tried sending mail thru the localhost with ASPEmail and that also failed... the posts where quicker on all three of those but the emails never came.   I watched them leave the SMTP queue though.   Any ideas... suggestions... rants?   thx