Weird instrument cluster behavior

[az3579]

Over the weekend, I was driving along on the highway when the OBC display went really dim for a second, then came back on to full brightness and never did it again.

So then on Monday, once again I was driving on the highway and it did something even weirder. The gauges completely went out, the backlighting turned off, and pretty much all of the warning lights went on. It was beeping at me multiple times and did this for a few seconds. The radio was still on and played normally, until it started to come back, at which point it cut out for a few seconds and then resumed playing. The fog lights stayed on, the engine kept running as though nothing ever happened, and after a few seconds everything came back to normal. My trip odometer, mpg, mph, and time readings all got reset.


Does anyone have any idea what the heck that could've been?

[kayger12]

Strange, BP- especially because electrical gremlins are fairly uncommon for our cars.

Do you think it might be connected to the voltage issues you were having during the Shark Injector install? If so, maybe a reinstall of the factory settings from the SI and then reinstall the SI again.

Only other thing I can think of is if your alternator is starting to go and the voltage was down a little- not enough to affect engine performance, but just enough to make the cluster/computer go whacky.

Most of the threads I've read with reference to cluster abnormalities like that end up having something to do with a voltage problem (usually a bad battery, but you should be good there with the new one).

I'll keep digging and see if I can find anything...

[danewilson77]

I would look into your gm5 going and also...in the mean time...just pull your cluster and clean the connections with some electronic cleaner.....then apply a lil dab of di-electric grese to the connections.

http://www.bmwgm5.com/

[az3579]

Strange, BP- especially because electrical gremlins are fairly uncommon for our cars.

Do you think it might be connected to the voltage issues you were having during the Shark Injector install? If so, maybe a reinstall of the factory settings from the SI and then reinstall the SI again.


I don't think this is the case. The Injector will not program if voltage is insufficient. It'll get past the "copying files" phase, but the "reprogramming" phase would fail if the voltage is too low. It never entered the phase with the old battery. With the new battery, everything worked perfectly.



Only other thing I can think of is if your alternator is starting to go and the voltage was down a little- not enough to affect engine performance, but just enough to make the cluster/computer go whacky.


This is a definite possibility. The thing with this is that wouldn't the car no longer charge the battery? Everything works perfectly at this point; car always starts, all electronics work, if there isn't any indication of a bad alternator. The motor was running perfectly with no interruption when this happened, along with the fog lights and angel eyes. The radio still worked. All of this stuff uses quite a bit of power. If there was a voltage fluctuation, do you think these items would be affected?




I would look into your gm5 going and also...in the mean time...just pull your cluster and clean the connections with some electronic cleaner.....then apply a lil dab of di-electric grese to the connections.

http://www.bmwgm5.com/

That link mentions problems with the door locks. I have no problems with the door locks at all. Do you think this matters?
I'll pull the cluster and see what I can find. If I disconnect it, will there be any problems as far as check lights go? I will not be driving the car whatsoever with the cluster pulled so there is no mileage conflict with the LKM.

[danewilson77]

I don't think it has to necessarily affect door locks. It does mention interior lighting........so...I am unsure if its all or nothing.

No....everything resynch's when you put power back in the cluster. No worries.

[kayger12]

This is a definite possibility. The thing with this is that wouldn't the car no longer charge the battery? Everything works perfectly at this point; car always starts, all electronics work, if there isn't any indication of a bad alternator. The motor was running perfectly with no interruption when this happened, along with the fog lights and angel eyes. The radio still worked. All of this stuff uses quite a bit of power. If there was a voltage fluctuation, do you think these items would be affected?


From everything I've read, the computers are very sensitive to even minor fluctuations in the voltage. It takes a pretty large voltage drop to be noticeable as far as engine performance or even battery charging, but a much smaller voltage fluctuation could affect the computers w/out necessarily being noticeable otherwise.

You can try using the hidden OBC functions and see what the system voltage and battery voltage are. Maybe run her up to around 3k rpms and see if you get any fluctuations?

http://www.bimmerfest.com/wiki/index.php/BMW_E46#Hidden_Onboard_Computer_Functions

[kayger12]

How goes it with your electrical gremlin, BP?

[az3579]

How goes it with your electrical gremlin, BP?

Hasn't happened again.

[kayger12]

In this case, then, no news is good news...

[az3579]

I guess so. :)

[gr330zhp]

My friends E36 used to do this. But his would happen only when driving the car was driven after an hour or so. And it would come and go, his gauges would drop and everything. It ended up being a ground issue on his.....

[SoarinZHP]

It ended up being a ground issue on his.....

Do you happen to know where the grounding issue was?