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  #1  
Old 09-12-2018, 04:10 PM
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2004 X5 4.4 - problem with main gauge cluster

My 2004 X5 4.4 developed a weird behavior a while ago that has gotten steadily worse.

When I start the vehicle the needles for the gas gauge, tachometer, speedometer, and engine temperature gauge will all twitch a few times and then drop to their resting positions.

Once they do this none of the gauges work anymore, and it will take one or more times restarting the car, usually with a minute or two pause, before the gauges will work again.

The car runs normally while the gauges are dead, and the various trip computer functions like distance to empty, average speed, and average fuel economy all work, so the systems sending the information all seem to continue working as normal, but the gauges simply stop displaying anything.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Any ideas what to look at, or where to look for more ideas/information?

Any help is hugely appreciated.
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  #2  
Old 09-13-2018, 12:12 PM
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By coincidence someone else posted about the exact same problem as this on the same day, over at bimmerfest, and included what might be a hugely important piece of information.

His diagnostic showed an error in the instrument cluster reading "Latch-up measuring device driver". That rang a bell for me and might point to the source of the problem. A "latch-up" is when a parasitic circuit forms in a microchip, leaching electricity away from the pathways it's supposed to follow onto another pathway unrelated to its function. When this happens the chip will no longer function properly, but the problem can often be solved by power cycling the chip. And THAT sounds like exactly the symptoms I experience.

So now my new question - Does anyone know of someone who does repairs on instrument clusters in Montreal?
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  #3  
Old 09-13-2018, 12:31 PM
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Alternatively, does anyone know if it would be possible to open the gauge cluster unit and swap some of the internals with a different one? Could I for example get a cracked and damaged one from eBay or a wreckers and take the circuit boards out of it and put them in my gauge cluster?
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  #4  
Old 09-13-2018, 02:02 PM
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I had initially posted here but wasn't getting any traction so I posted over to bimmerfest yesterday lol

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ter-issue.html\

Also on a separate topic, Qsilver had posted a diagram of who all the info gets to the the IKE:

https://xoutpost.com/1139500-post36.html

Maybe you can understand it better than me.
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  #5  
Old 09-13-2018, 02:45 PM
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Oh, hey man. How fortunate that we both use the same username on both sites. Especially since we seem to just be talking to each other about this problem. Heh.

Thanks for the link to the diagrams, but unfortunately our problem(s) is almost certainly inside the gauge cluster unit itself since the actual data is getting to it, and can be seen in the trip computer. We can see how fast we're going by zeroing the average speed calculator for example, but the gauges simply stop displaying anything.

It's annoying to know that the problem is in a simple little circuit board somewhere inside the cluster that is likely worth about $2, but we might need to replace an entire otherwise functional large and expensive piece of the vehicle to fix it.
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Old 09-13-2018, 03:54 PM
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Yeah it's just us two, no one knows I suppose. LOL

At least for your model you can find it under $300.

Mine has the M style gray faced cluster and the cheapest used I found was $400+
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  #7  
Old 09-13-2018, 04:54 PM
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Yeah, I can find it relatively cheap, although it's a bit harder to find one in metric rather than imperial. I just hate the idea of replacing my whole unit since it's in near perfect condition with no display problems, cracks, scratches, or clouding. My X5 has less than 90,000 miles on it despite being 14 years old and every gauge cluster I find looks like it's in worse shape and from a higher mileage vehicle. :-/
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Old 09-13-2018, 05:01 PM
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Trust me I feel your pain, mine has 117k and all lights and pixels work as well. But the used ones I'm finding all seem to have good pixels too.
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  #9  
Old 09-17-2018, 08:23 PM
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Mines is getting worse as well now, it's more not working than it is.

Today I got the PA Software working and was able to dig deeper into the DTC's. Here is what came up:

IKE:

DB/90 - Electronic braking-force distribution
3F/88 - Overcurrent in instrument circuit
3E/48 - Fault when activating indicator instruments
BF/48 - Internal fault, EEPROM checksum, coding incorrect/incomplete

I cleared them and re-scan them and hasn't come back YET....
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  #10  
Old 09-17-2018, 08:46 PM
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"Overcurrent in instrument circuit" <-- There's the direct cause of your problem. An overcurrent is exactly the type of thing that causes a latch-up in a circuit - the charge goes high enough to jump from one circuit to another.

The guys blackxman recommended wrote back to me with a link to a YouTube video they thought would help me. So... I guess based on the video I'm going to pull all my instrument cluster fuses, start the car, turn the car off, and put the fuses back in again.

What are you using to get the codes from your system btw?
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