At the moment, I'm doing a bit of fault finding on a PCB. Although surface mount is a bit beyond my skills.
That being said, I'm just weighing up what could be at fault and whether its worth trying to do something.

Upon inspection of the circuit board, I have noticed that one of the surface mount components (Capacitor?) has a silvery finish to it. Unlike the rest of the components.

Does it look like it could be faulty? If so, what causes it to look like that? (Just interested)

 

I don't think the surface finish indicates any problem.
However, I can see a hint of a line across it that may be a crack. This is something that can happen to these capacitors. Have a careful, magnified, look and see if you can tell if it is indeed a crack. If you use a soldering iron on one end you may discover that half of it comes away.

 

Not sure if a cracked SMD cap would represent a dead short though, but you never know. Best to check the easy parts and eliminate them first.

 

More magnification, sharper focus and perhaps some angled light (tilt the pcb) might help. Sometimes i've seen a shadow cast by angling the light which was not visible with perpendicular lighting.

 

I can't tell from the photo but of more concern is the lone white component in what seems to be a row of black diodes.

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