w202 diagnostic lights and gauge not working
 

Today I was driving my 1997 C 180 W202 Mercedes and suddenly the gauge cluster stopped working. I've googled around for an hour now and everywhere I read problems of people having a dancing fuel gauge. This is not the case for me.
The clock, the outside temperature indicator are working and the ODO-meter is lighting up (but not increasing), but when I turn the ignition key, I don't see any diagnostic lights and the gauges don't move. The cruise control and the climate control also don't work. The radiator fan starts running quickly after ignition - which isn't normal - and keeps running until I switch off the engine. I can drive the car without problems, but before I send my gauge cluster to be repaired, I would like to know if someone has run into this problem before and might know where I need to look for a solution.

it was the fuse
 

I found the fuse that caused the problem (fuse 3). So it was a simple fix