I am literally having this same problem and cannot figure it out. P0500 and no guages/backlight on guages. I tried 2 different clusters and still the same problem. None of the guages work and neither do the lights that light up the guage cluster portion of the dash. Lights on radio/climate...
Could you please describe where that ground wire is? I randomly am having a similar issue. Entire cluster is out/backlights not working. Dimmer switch and radio lights all work as normal. Not sure where to start with this. Thanks in advance