I ran into a problem trying to run wordpress on a local server that could not resolve its own DNS because it has no domain name. It ran incredibly slow.

I found this tidbit of information on this page.

It helps get wordpress to run faster when it can’t resolve its own DNS. This works with version 2.7.

Try disabling all external HTTP access:

1. /wp-includes/http.php

2. this on about line 210:

function request( $url, $args = array() ){
global $wp_version;

3. Change it to:

function request( $url, $args = array() ) {
return;
global $wp_version;

4. Save the file and upload to your host,

I also found this page for some help as well, although not for version 2.7 directly.