I did a quick review of the board via the search function and didn't see anything already covering this so here it goes:

I have a 2000 Xterra SE that has intermittent problems with the dash cluster (speedo/tach/odo) stop working for a few minutes. The cluster appears to have power since the backlighting still works, however the speedo/tach/gas/temp/odo guages all stop responding. At times they'll freeze in place, other times they'll drop to zero. On either occasion, the odometer/trip meter will blank out and only show the words in the left corner (Odo/Trip A/B) but even that will slowly fade out to a blank screen. After a few minutes everything seems to come back to life. I havn't been able to find any sort of pattern to how this happens (ie. certain speeds/hitting bumps/etc) nor does there seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it comes back to life (ie. speed/bumps/hitting the dash/etc.) Any thoughts on what could be causing this or how to resolve? I thought maybe it was worn/dirty contacts on the back of the cluster, but if it's still getting power for lighting, I dunno how that could be. Any help is appreciated.