Question : Need fix for explorer restarting every 5 seconds

I'm working on a machine that restarts explorer/desktop every 5 seconds.  I've tried AVG 8.0, McAffee Anti-virus, Spybot, Ad-aware 2008, smitfraud detectors, doing an in-place installation of XP pro, but nothing works.  It's driving me crazy as it is so hard to work when the windows disappear every 5 seconds, even in safe mode.  Help & thanks!

Answer : Need fix for explorer restarting every 5 seconds

Here's a web page with a similar problem, and apparently the Combofix program finally fixed it for him:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/965352.html
explorer.exe Keeps Restarting Every 5sec

see this comment on that page by JBL:

hasher22 writes...
My computer is clean but i still get this explorer.exe restarting every 5 secs or so!...

please help!??

Are you sure it's clean? ... clean of 'problems' ???

Does explorer run for a few seconds, then the screen goes blank totally?

You may have to try this approach (it worked for me, when I had to clean up some infected PCs in recent times)...

First up, download download.bleepingcompute...UBs/ComboFix.exe to a USB memory stick from a working computer.

Next, go to the PC that's got problems. Ignore the fact that explorer won't work. Just do the ctrl+shift+esc thing, and from the task manager file menu, select run, then type CMD.

Next, copy the combofix.exe file you saved to the USB memory stick to the hard disk of the PC (yes, you'll need to use command line skills here, but don't worry, we're nearly done...).

Once you copy the combofix.exe file, then run it from where you saved it. Let it do it's thing. Once complete, restart the PC.