Too slow adding & defining items to QTreeWidget

[jnk5y]

WinXP
QT4.0.1

The code below fills a QTreeWidget with items from a table in my database. I set the text so users can identify the name and set the WhatsThis to the id of the row so I know which one was selected by the user.

I'll take any advice to speed this up in any way. The table can have anywhere from 10-2000 entries. If i remove the text, WhatsThis, and icon it speeds things up by a factor of 10. This is really kicking my butt. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

query.exec( "SELECT name,number,id,identifier FROM table;" );
 
  while( query.next() ) 
  {
    List << new QTreeWidgetItem(sectorsNode);
    qString.sprintf("%s | %d" , query.value(0).toByteArray().data(), query.value(1).toInt() );
    List .last()->setText( 0, qString );
    List .last()->setWhatsThis( 0, query.value(2).toString() );
    List .last()->setIcon( 0,  Icon );
    QApplication::processEvents();
  }

query.exec( "SELECT name,number,id,identifier FROM table;" );
  
  while( query.next() ) 
  {
    List << new QTreeWidgetItem(sectorsNode);
    qString.sprintf("%s | %d" , query.value(0).toByteArray().data(), query.value(1).toInt() );
    List .last()->setText( 0, qString );
    List .last()->setWhatsThis( 0, query.value(2).toString() );
    List .last()->setIcon( 0,  Icon );
    QApplication::processEvents();
  }

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