if your headlights were dim before you hooked up your jump box but then are bright after you hooked up your jump box even if you take it off, you have a battery connection problem at the battery terminals. That may or may not be related to your dash problem.
If you leave your headlights on and try to start your engine, do the headlights dim when you turn the ignition switch to the start position? or do they stay bright? If they stay bright then you are not getting a connection all the way to the starter.
Ignition switch could cause problems like not getting power to your cluster and/or radio and now the starter. However it wouldn't be the ignition switch if parts of the cluster work and other parts do not. your dash is a separate computer module. Does your scanner have the instrument cluster choice to scan for codes does it only do the check engine light? (engine systems) Instrument cluster should have it's own category. (ie. engine, trans, abs, instrument cluster, SRS, etc.) The cluster does not look at each individual sender for gauge information. It gets the gauge info. as a data stream and converts it to the gauges. So, if some gauges work and others don't it could be a stepper motor problem. if they all don't work it could be a circuit board problem or a serial data problem.
|