2009 Macbook issue: download speed limitation

Hi
Mi wife got a late 2009 white macbook that's driving me crazy. Despite we got a 7Mbit ADSL connection and all others macs at home (we got 2 more 2008 macbooks and a 2008 macbook pro) with the very same OS version (10.6.4) and network settings are working properly and downloading at full speed, her one looks to have some kind of speed limitation in download to around 1.5 Mbps.
The ping and upload speeds are the very same of other computers, and apparently randomly the download speed also on that computer gets back to around 7 Mbps...
I just spent the afternoon doing tests and I got nowhere but maybe I found a pattern...
First what I excluded:
-doesn't depend on how it's hooked to the net, same behavior by ethernet or wifi in both cases the other service was off
-any other mac using the same connection is working properly, did side by side tests
-ping is always the same on both computers used for test
-it is not a DNS issue
-deleted and created a new position in Network panel
-did several restarts, no solution
-doesn't depend on a specific app being used (but maybe apps can matter, see below)
-none of possible fixes I found online did work
-probably it isn't related to OS version or updates, this issue has likely been there since a lot of time, and over more os updates (not really sure of this, we had unrelated netwok issues and changed provider for that reason in last year, we cot a stable and uniform environment just recently)
Now what I noticed:
-As soon as the computer is started and I open a single browser (be it Safari, Chrome or Firefox doesn't change) speedtest.net test is ok, 7Mbps download.
-work and navigate with it, it's ok, download speed remains 7Mbps
-As soon another internet using application is opened (Mail, another browser) the connection speed drops to 1.5 Mbps (this is ALWAYS the limit, no relevant fluctuation in this)
-If I close any of above apps and remain with a single browser, running tests initially report still the 1.5 limit, but shortly after (one or two minutes) the speed gets back to 7Mbps
My wife needs to work with Mail, Skype, and at least two browsers open, so this limit is giving her great troubles

taylor.henderson wrote:
-none of possible fixes I found online did work
This doesn't really help narrow down the problem
{quote}
doh, you are right... sorry... the possible fixes I had found around are the ones reported right before...
Create a new user account on the problem computer and see if the slow speeds and strange behaviour persists in it.
I did, it does...
- created a new user and logged in
- opened Safari, speedtest returns 7Mbit/s in download
- opened Firefox, after a little speed drops to 1.4
- some successive test starts slow (1.4) then sometimes speeds up, but most remain at 1.4
- start chrome too, same behaviour
- close Safari and Firefox, wait a little (1 or 2 minutes) do the test with Chrome, back to 7Mbit/s
Then go through stuff like this http://www.gballard.net/macrant/osx_troubleshooting.html.
I went through it and did most of what's suggested there (it's a little complex because when I am not working my wife is usually using her macbook to study and needs to use it all the time)...
- unused disk space is 95,6 GB
- booted in single user mode and did a fsck -fy
- repaired permissions
Nothing changed, both the behavior takes place in new user account, and in main one, where any internet using application (Mail, Skype...) opened together causes the download slow down...

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