electrical 2005 Legacy clock, information display issues

[b4sic]

Hello everyone,

I've been having a problem with (I think) my digital clock (information display). The problem is that it sometimes starts flickering, but not completely on and off, more like its rapidly switching the brightness modes, as if I'm pressing the "BRIGHT" button rapidly. This affects the radio, climate controls, and mileage near the gauges too. Other than that, it sometimes shows ACC, ERR, and IGN messages, even though nothing seems to actually be wrong. Lastly, the time resets to 1PM. Sometimes the clock shuts off altogether, and the radio, climate controls, and mileage near the gauges keep flickering (or sometimes don't flicker). All of this happens randomly, but usually simultaneously. There are periods when this does not happen, could be a few minutes, could be a whole day, but the problems return.

Does anyone have any ideas what's going on? What I should check? I'd greatly appreciate any and all help.

Thank you.

[KZJonny]

I would always start with looking at the main grounds, or wherever the clock display, etc... ground out to. (Never hurts to look at the main battery/engine grounds either, many electrical gremlins trace back to that.)

More specifically, there are some threads that talk about poor solder joints in the trip computer that benefit from being re-flowed, and which cause some problems like these. I don't have a reference for that off the top of my head, but a search might bring some of it up.